As thousands of Britons today began landing at airports up and down the country, one Shropshire woman was arriving home after a gruelling two-day journey by car and ferry.

As the flights ban was finally lifted, passengers were heading for airports in a bid to get back to the UK, but some were already home thanks to iron determination and a true Dunkirk spirit.

Stranded TV worker Lizzie Hollick’s father drove from the family home in Shrewsbury on a 2,037-mile round trip to bring her back from Spain in time for the London Marathon.

Lizzie, who books celebrities for the ITV show This Morning, was desperate to get back for the big race on Sunday, which she is running in memory of her mum, Chris.

Mrs Hollick died of cancer in 2008 and 29-year-old Lizzie hopes to raise more than £5,000 for Severn Hospice which cared for her.

Lizzie said she would have been “mortified” to have missed the marathon because of the ban on flights as she has been in training for eight months for the challenge.

Dad Allan Hollick took a day-and-a-half to travel from Shrewsbury down to Bilbao, on the north east Spanish coast, to meet up with Lizzie.

He then drove her and three of her colleagues all the way to Caen in northern France to catch a ferry back to England last night.

Shrewsbury-born Lizzie, who was due back at her London home today while Allan returned to Shropshire, had been in La Manga on the south west coast with a team from This Morning.

She said: “We had been due to fly home last Sunday and last week we heard about the volcanic ash cloud and that flights in and out of the UK had been grounded.

“We didn’t think much about it at the time but when the flights ban was still in force on Saturday it was obviously getting serious and so we checked with Ryanair and were told to go to the airport the following day. When we did we found that the soonest available flight we could get was April 29 so we realised we would have to find our own way home.”

The TV team managed to get a bus from Murcia and after a 12-hour journey arrived in Bilbao where Allan was to meet them.

Lizzie said: “I was so determined to run in the London Marathon. I am not very fit and so have been in training for eight months. I would have been mortified to have missed the race after all that effort.”

People who want to sponsor Lizzie can do so at www.justgiving.com/lizziehollick

Meanwhile, two teachers from Shrewsbury High School showed equal resourcefulness when they found themselves stranded in Geneva. Head of maths Jacquie Mills and sixth form tutor Di Higgs caught a taxi all the way to the French coast, then boarded a ferry and after an overnight stay in London finally got back home at the weekend – in time for the start of the new term which began this week.

Going the other way, two relieved Shropshire pensioners were today jetting out for a fortnight in Cyprus after their holiday flight received an 11th hour reprieve.

Robert Williams, 68, and Marjorie Hammond, 66, from Coreley, near Ludlow, checked Teletext last night as they were going to bed, expecting their date in the sun in Larnaca to be off, only to discover the flights ban had been lifted.

Meanwhile, 132 holidaymakers stranded on Spanish islands arrived back in Birmingham shortly after 6pm yesterday after airline Monarch organised a rescue flight from Palma, Majorca.

However, other Shropshire people have not been so lucky. Two Shropshire couples are still stuck in New York because of the flights chaos and are reaching desperation point. Russell and Lynette Anderton, from Malinslee, Telford, had been on a Caribbean cruise and were today said to be almost out of cash.

Mark Lewis of Hadley Park House Hotel in Telford and Margot Foster of The Wroxeter Hotel near Shrewsbury today said they were both losing bookings due to the flights cancellation

The Wroxeter Hotel has also reported cancelled bookings.

By Simon Hardy