Navy man on mission to help out
A former Royal Navy engineer is using his skills to help children struggling without laptops while their schools are shut.
Phil Macrae, 33, now runs a computer repair workshop and is devoting his spare time to refurbishing old devices donated after he appealed on Facebook.
In just five weeks he has spent more than 350 hours rebuilding 250 second-hand computers which have been given to more than 30 schools in the West Midlands.
He travelled all over the world in the Navy and completed two operational tours in Afghanistan before returning to the UK last year.
Mr Macrae then set up his computer repair firm called The Speedy Bear and works out of a modest annexe of a house in Coventry.
Education firm Pearson has backed Mail Force with a fantastic double donation.
The company is offering 250 laptops and £50,000 cash on top. Both donations will go straight into the campaign to get lockdown schoolchildren online.
Pearson, which publishes everything from pupils’ textbooks to educational resources for teachers and companies, pledged to add more laptops at a later date.
The firm employs more than 22,000 in 70 countries and is the latest corporation to back the Daily Mail’s Computers for Kids campaign, which has now raised an incredible £10.7million in the three weeks since it launched.
Andy Bird, chief executive of Pearson, said: ‘We are proud to support the campaign to provide laptops to children most in need across the UK.