CUMBRIAN war veteran Mark Harding has made it to the finals of the Veterans Awards. 

Mark, of Wigton, is in the Inspiration of the Year Award category and also the Lifetime Achievement Award category. 

He served 16 years in the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment from 1996 to 2013. Doing multiple tours in Bosnia twice, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq twice, and Afghanistan.

In 2010, while serving in Afghanistan, he was shot in the neck by a Taliban sniper with a 7.62 round, shattering my C5 C6 vertebrae and taking the majority of my spinal cord, which left him paralysed from the neck down.

Mr Harding said: "I spent nine weeks in a High Dependency Unit, where two spinal consultants told me I’d never walk again due to the extent of my injuries."

"I didn’t accept this prognosis, though, and after three years of hard work and determination at DRMC Headley Court, I learned to walk again with the aid of crutches. I used my grandmother's words: 'a positive mind and you can achieve anything.'

"I applied those words to put my best foot forward in life, and I still do to this day. To give back to those who helped me, I have spent the last thirteen years, entirely funded by myself, carrying out fundraising missions all over the UK, for a range of charities, including the Army Benevolent Fund, Scotty’s Little Soldiers, the NHS, Cash for Kids, and Walking for the Wounded."