This week’s pictures from the past

Heave! Paralympic hero Ricky Balshaw is the toast of Shropshire after winning a silver medal in the Beijing games, but this photo captures a key part of his childhood story, when he was the subject of a major fundraising campaign to send him to the world-famous Peto Institute in Hungary for treatment for cerebral palsy.

In an event organised by workmates of Ricky’s dad Mick Balshaw at Link 51 in Telford, a Mini was pushed to the top of The Wrekin in just 41 minutes, back in September 1989.

Steve Fox, of Willey, who still works at Link 51, loaned us this picture and said the Mini had come from a local scrapyard. He confesses: “A lot of people have tried unsuccessfully since to beat our record and I can now disclose the reason - we took the engine out of our Mini.”