‘It is such an atrocity’: Couple tell how they helped hundreds of Ukrainians get out of war zone

Simon Robinson and his partner Sarah Woolley helped hundreds of women and children from Ukraine to get out of the war-ravaged country.

They endured so many air-raid alerts during the course of their humanitarian efforts that when they returned to the UK the noise of a passing helicopter or ambulance would make them jump.

Now they are living in the peaceful surroundings of Watten – but the couple are considering another trip to Ukraine to visit friends they made there and to deliver vital supplies.

“It’s such an atrocity,” Simon said of the conflict that began with the invasion by Russian forces in February 2022. Sarah added: “On the news you don’t see half of what is happening.”

The couple are both from Bristol, although the first time they met was in Poland three years ago this month. Sarah went out to join an aid mission Simon had launched with his lifelong friend Brian Phillips within two weeks of the outbreak of the war.

Simon (52) and Sarah (38) moved into the former Church of Scotland manse in Watten last September and see it as an opportunity to “start again”. Sarah said: “We absolutely love it up here.”

Simon is working for The Saw Doctor, a tree care, maintenance and landscaping business. Sarah is helping there too, in addition to her main job with building contractor GMR Henderson.

“When the war started we saw the horrific scenes on TV and there were thousands upon thousands of women and children trying to flee the country,” Simon recalled.

He and Brian resolved to go and help. They started a fundraising page and drove to Ukraine in a people-carrier.

“We didn’t have a clue what we were going to do or how we were going to go about it,” Simon admitted. “We started helping people move over the border into Poland and then we started distributing people into various parts of Europe.

“I never knew Sarah then. She saw what I was doing on Facebook and asked if she could come and help.”

They enabled about 350 Ukrainian women and children to get out of the country and still keep in touch with many of them.

“We took minibuses full of people out,” Simon said. “We spent many hours on the borders getting people out of danger and into safe areas.

“I clocked up 22,500 miles going from the UK to Ukraine and around Europe and back home again.

“The emotions were all over the place. And coming back to the UK was very difficult as well. Every time we heard a helicopter or an ambulance it would make us jump.

“We had a lot of air raids and we had to get to shelters. In each district in Ukraine you’ve got an air-raid app on your phone, so every time there’s an air raid in that district your phone will go off – it could be all times of the night and day.

“It was pretty scary.”

At one point they linked up with a church charity group called LoveBristol which was helping Ukrainian refugees to resettle with sponsors in the UK.

Simon and Sarah have gone back twice with aid to the city of Komarno.

“Me and Sarah do plan to go back and see the people we stayed with in Komarno,” Simon said. “If and when we do go, we’ll take aid over. Hopefully the war will have ended by the time we go back over.”

Simon received a certificate of thanks from the Komarno city authority in recognition of his support to Ukrainian families.

“It is an awful situation,” he said. “You’ve got children from newborn up to teenage and to see their faces… they’re like zombies, as if they’ve had the life sucked out of them. All they had was a little backpack each and that’s all they could carry.

“At some points there were 3000 or 3500 women and children trying to cross the border and it’s down to minus 15 in the winter there. There were some people dying on the border, just queuing up to get over into Poland. It’s awful.”

Sarah decided she had to do something after TV reports began to show shocking images of the war in Ukraine.

“I was seeing all the women and children,” she said. “I thought this is terrible, how can this happen? It’s a war on our doorstep.

“I went onto Facebook, I looked at the local groups to see who was working over there. I got on a plane, met him in Poland, and it started from there.

“It was really bad at the time – there wasn’t a lot of aid. One person we helped over was an elderly woman. She’d had two strokes and she was in a hospital in central Lviv but she had to leave that.

“We literally had to get a woman in the back of a van who couldn’t walk, who couldn’t talk, she was very frail, and we transported her out. That was one of the main things.

“It’s still very much happening and it has also got a lot worse. The air-raid sirens were crazy.

“We were very lucky, really. One day we’d be driving past buildings and then there would be bombings and next day you’d drive past and it wasn’t there any more.

“For me, I stayed very much positive for the women and the children we had in transportation with us. Simon was concentrating on the driving and not going through all the potholes on the roads, because the roads are terrible in Ukraine – even worse than Scotland, trust me.

“It was just making sure the women and children were happy and talking to them. Some of the stories and situations they’d been through were just… not nice.

“At the end of the journey [at the border] they were so grateful and it was nice to see them smiling. We spent time getting to know them and we’re still very good friends with some of the people now, which is great.

“We just tried to make it better for everyone we were in contact with.”

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