Freddie Farmer Foundation thriving one year after scooping Pride of Britain award

By ITV London journalist Ruth Zorko (@ruthZorko)

Tonight, the great and the good will be making their way up the red carpet for this year's Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards - a glittering event where the stars aren't the celebrities but ordinary people who've done extraordinary things.

Among those attending will be London's Fundraiser of the Year, Claudia Hicks, who'll find out if she's scooped a nationwide prize, after she set up a foundation to raise money for bereaved families.

Last year, it was Danny Catchesides from Eltham who was representing the capital. He'd raised £350,000 for a physiotherapy centre in Bromley for children with mobility problems. In 2014, it was just preparing to open its doors. Some of the equipment had been delivered, but none of it was up and running, and some of the rooms were still half empty.

Twelve months on, I went back to Bromley to find out how things had changed.

The answer - a lot. They're already helping 35 children and are fully booked until Christmas.

Danny says he was hugely surprised by the level of demand in the local area. He'd originally set up the Freddie Farmer Foundation in his grandson's name, to prevent Freddie having to travel all the way to Oxford for physiotherapy. But it soon became clear, it wasn't just his family enduring that 200-mile round trip.

"It's unbelievable. Since we've been open, all these people have found us. It's amazing how many - and all live not far from here, mostly within a 10 or 15 mile radius," said Danny.

And the fundraising goes on. Not only do they have to raise £120,000 a year to cover their costs, they're also embarking on a drive to raise money for a "game-changing" piece of equipment. The LokoHelp gait-trainer looks like a sophisticated treadmill - the child is suspended from a harness, and their legs enclosed in robotic boots, on top of the conveyor belt.

Danny tells me it does the work of two physiotherapists - holding the child's legs in exactly the right position, to build their muscles. The Freddie Farmer Foundation has one on an eight-week loan, but they'll have to raise around £145,000 to keep it.

"We've got to have it, one way or another we've got to get it," says Danny.

Danny also says he'd love to raise enough cash to be able to reduce the centre's fees. A block session of three hours a day for four weeks currently costs users £1,500.

And he's also got high hopes for the results they can achieve.

"We haven't got anybody independently walking yet, but I'm sure we will," he told me.

"And I can't wait to kick a football about with little Freddie - that's the driving thing behind what we're doing, but look how many other kids we can help as well."

You can watch the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards at 8pm on Thursday 1 October on ITV1.