WINTER may be here but nothing will stop Swindon’s modest heroes from being given their place in the sun.

The Pride of Swindon 2016 awards will be launched next month, which gives Adver readers plenty of extra time to decide who to nominate.

This newspaper is among a group of local organisations who are delighted to back the awards, which aim to recognise those who seek no recognition because they’re too modest and too busy making their community a better place.

That is the only entry qualification for the awards; previous winners have been drawn from an array of backgrounds.

They have included founders and staunch supporters of local charities, and people who have devoted countless thousands of hours to welfare organisations .

Awards have been given to people who have raised money and awareness for others, often in spite of facing challenges of their own. There have been winners whose personal heroism saved strangers in peril and winners whose simple care for others was a different form of heroism.

What all winners have in common is that they act with no thought of or desire for recognition, much less of acclaim and applause at awards ceremonies.

Rather, they do what they do because of their simple certainty that what they’re doing is necessary and right.

We happen to believe this is all the more reason for their work to be celebrated.

When the awards are formally announced, we’ll tell everybody how to make sure that celebration can take place.