BBC Breakfast revealed former teacher Peter Buckley, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer and given six months to live, as the first person to have started work through the ASTRiiD scheme.

Buckley told the programme: “If you can stay positive while you’re undergoing treatment and while you’re suffering a disease like cancer – it helps you tremendously. To quote my wife: ‘I seem to have my husband back again’.”

The charity was set up by founder David Shutts OBE (above, right), who was diagnosed with kidney cancer just days after his 50th birthday.

While Shutts’s cancer has spread to his lungs and brain, he expressed pleasure at the charity’s first placement.

He told BBC Breakfast: “So I am starting my last journey but I cannot be downhearted – our first person has started work and he is absolutely euphoric. He is euphoric – we have changed his life and that is so positive… It means everything to me because that’s what we can do for other people.”

While Shutts didn’t attend the Recruiter Awards a week ago due to his health, his brother Steve Shutts (above, left), who is chair of the charity, was there. He laid down the gauntlet to recruiters to get involved with offering their expert insight to the charity.

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