Handsome hound ‘Lui’ helps Derbyshire science company staff boost lifesaving charity

Cute pet pics snapped by Derbyshire science company staff have helped boost a life-saving charity which is helping mark National Heart Month this February.

Employees at science company Lubrizol - whose UK technical centre is based at Hazelwood near Duffield - were asked to get their cameras out to snap pics of their beloved canine and feline friends so the company’s creative department could put them together to make a charity calendar in aid of the RSPCA and St John Ambulance.

Employees enthusiastically got behind the challenge and after much deliberation chose a handsome Labrador and Spaniel Cross – Lui – to be featured on the front cover.

Lui’s owner Will Durkin said he had taken the atmospheric shot of Lui gazing into the sunset while on a walk on Tarner Island – a remote Scottish isle just off the north-west coast of the stunning Hebridean Isle of Skye.

Technology deployment manager Will said he and his partner often walked in Scotland at weekends and their dog Lui had been named after one of their favourite haunts: Ben Lui, the highest Munro in the southern Scottish Highlands.

He said: “My partner and I are very keen walkers, which is why we got a dog together! We go up to Scotland every couple of months. We got Lui in May 2020 – although he wasn’t strictly a ‘lockdown dog’ as we had decided to acquire him a long time beforehand.

“This shot was taken on Tarner Island which you have to get to by boat. We canoed out there to go for this walk where I took this photo.”

Lubrizol has held its calendar making photo competition in the past, but organisers said this year had been the most popular yet with more than twice the number of employees sending in photos as previously.

Animals included dogs, cats, and even a cow, chickens and pigs put in appearances!

Tom Grazier, co-chair of Lubrizol’s charities and communities committee, said: “People really got behind our calendar competition this year and we had some great entries. It was a hard choice to pick the best picture for the front but we feel Lui was a worthy winner. Lots of calendars have been bought by Lubrizol employees and we’re very happy to be able to donate to the RSPCA and St John Ambulance.”

This February marks National Heart Month in which charities including St John Ambulance are raising awareness of heart health and potentially fatal cardiovascular diseases.

Lubrizol has adopted St John Ambulance as a charity for the next two years, over all its UK sites.

The company’s support for the charity has included company couple Claire and Tim Hollingshurst walking the whole of the 55-mile Heritage Way in the space of 24 hours, a feat which raised nearly £2,000. Representatives from St John Ambulance have visited Lubrizol’s sites in Derbyshire, Huddersfield and Blackley in Manchester to deliver CPR sessions.

More than 30,000 cardiac arrests take place outside of a hospital setting in the UK every year. But less than one in ten people survive, often because those around them don’t have the skills or confidence to perform CPR, or access to a defibrillator.

When someone is in cardiac arrest their heart has stopped beating, and every minute without CPR or defibrillation reduces the chances of survival by up to 10 per cent, while early CPR and defibrillation can more than double survival rates.