Vernon
This is a modern English hero. His name is Vernon Unsworth and he was awarded the MBE medal for what he did in northern Thailand in the summer of 2018. You may recall that back then twelve Thai boys and the assistant coach of their football team became trapped by rising waters in the Tham Luang cave system. Their lives were in danger but they had not drowned. They were trapped in an air pocket far from the entrance. It took the efforts of hundreds of people to extract them from their predicament. Key to the rescu e effort was Vernon Unsworth who lived in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand with his Thai girlfriend Woranan Ratrawiphukkun. For many years, Vernon had been a caver, exploring cave systems both in Great Britain and in South East Asia. He knew the Tham Luang system better than anybody and had spent many hours mapping the labyrinth with its complicated twists and turns, its flooded and its dry zones. I have been into pot holes in Derbyshire myself and I have a sens...