Glasgow

For decades George has been saving lives on the River Clyde with the Glasgow Humane Society. According to one of his several nominees, he’s a shining light who “lives, works and sleeps for the community of Glasgow by ensuring safety on Glasgow’s waterways”.

Peter O’Hara suffered severe injuries in conflict, spent three years in hospital and was told he would never walk again. Two and a half years later, Peter was transferred to a rehab ward and began walking. He raised two children single-handedly in Kilsyth and encouraged them to take up sport, teaching his son to become the Scottish number one for his age group. Peter has dedicated much of his life to squash, offering his time six days a week and coaching the sport to all ages for over 30 years.

24 months ago Paula admitted she was “unfit and slow-paced by choice; [a] clumsy buffoon by design”. She could never find a sport to fully suit her personal skill-base of “tumbling, tripping and tea-making”. With the XX Commonwealth Games on the horizon and inspired by the Olympics and Paralympic Games, Paula decided to make a massive change. For the next two years she promised to sample each of the 17 sports featuring in the Glasgow 2014 programme, and has gone through with her promise.

Dr Margo Whiteford was born with spina bifida and is a wheelchair user. She trained in medicine, went through the challenges of hospital on call jobs and is now a consultant clinical geneticist. She is the chair of the Scottish Spina Bifida Association, and this year became the President of the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. In 2009 she was The Evening Times’ Scotswoman of the Year in recognition of her work in the health service and for charity.

Margaret was born with congenital cataracts, rendering her blind from birth. Her personal motto “believe in life and life believes in you", is a demonstration of her self-belief and positive attitude to life. One constant feature throughout her life has been her involvement with charity work raising over £250,000 across 30 years. Margaret primarily supports charities for the blind and the partially-sighted.

Angie Malone is Britain's most decorated curler at Olympic or Paralympic level. She has represented Scotland at 6 World Championships winning Gold twice, Silver and Bronze. And Great Britain at 3 Paralympic Games winning Silver in Turin and most recently returning from Sochi this year with Bronze.Angie was spinally injured as a result of a road traffic accident when she was 16.