Bridport landlord Tom Littledyke has spoken openly about his experiences in travelling to Ukraine to deliver supplies and help refugees amid the Russian invasion.

Tom, a 31-year-old former Royal Marine Reservist, made a sudden decision to travel to the Ukrainian border in Poland at the beginning of March, leaving his partner Georgia Wellman behind to run their three local business – The Shave Cross Inn, near Bridport, and The Shave Cross Cellar and Antonio's Trattoria in Lyme Regis – and to organise support from home.

He delivered supplies at the border and then decided to cross into Ukraine and ferry refugees from Lviv train station back towards Poland, documenting his travels on social media which caught the attention of the world's media and helped to raise more than £18,000 for further aid, with donations still being taken at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/thomas-littledyke

Tom is now planning a second trip to Ukraine on Monday, March 14 and called a meeting in his country pub last night (Wednesday) to recruit volunteers to join him in a convoy of vehicles.

He spoke honestly about his "terrifying and heartbreaking" experiences, saying that it was "beautiful" to see how much the UK wanted to do something, and how proud he was of his hometown Lyme Regis for its support.

"This all started on a Sunday afternoon," he said. "Georgia and I were talking about it and someone approached me at the bar, he'd had a few drinks and said 'what can you and me do, there's nothing we can do?'

"That really resonated with me; the hopelessness people have felt in wanting to help. And this is it – this is how we can help, we can get together and talk about it, we can make the media pick up on this and make sure it's in everyone's conservation. The more we talk about it the more it's in people's minds and we'll make something happen, we'll make change.

"We were in the middle of food service so I couldn't talk to Georgia about it as much as I would have liked. This is a big thing on her as well, me deciding to go somewhere that I maybe shouldn't have gone, and it was obviously a hard conversation to have.

"I couldn't do any of this without Georgia. You may see me in the photos but she's organising it all and putting things into process.

'Ukrainian people are not alone'

"We got to 1am when we'd locked up and cleared up and I said to her, 'we have a minibus, we can help'. As long as it gives somebody some semblance of hope and that's what this is all about.

"This isn't about blankets and medical kits and teddy bears – that's not the important thing. The important thing is getting out to Ukraine and letting the Ukrainian people know that they are not alone. Telling them that the UK people want to help and we're constantly putting a boot up our politicians' arses to get them to do something.

"So, at 1am we made a Justgiving page and put our phones on silent. We knew we would have family and friends calling saying 'what are you doing?'. So we went to bed and woke up at 8am the next day and my phone was just ping, ping, ping, ping ping… we'd asked for £750 as we thought that would make a massive contribution towards fuel and extra donations that we could buy wholesale in Poland. By the time we woke up it was already £1,000.

"People want to help they want something to do with this, they want to make a difference.

"We dropped off the minibus in Lyme Regis high street and within two hours it was full – Lyme Regis came together. I am gobsmacked and incredibly proud of my hometown Lyme Regis.

"I got to France, drove down to Poland, met some reporters in Korczowa on the border with Ukraine. They had seen my story and we had a conversation about what was going on in the nearby train station and that's what spurred me on to get in there, and that's what I decided to do.

"I went in against Georgia's wishes. I called her and said 'I'm at the border, I'm going in', and she understood.

"So, I went in and it was heartbreaking to see; there are thousands upon thousands of people at the border just waiting for buses to get across. There's just no end to it and none of them have got the right clothing because they needed to just grab essentials, which is essentially a backpack, and get to the border.

"So, I got to the border, opened up the minibus, had a long argument with the Polish border control and we were just handing out blankets and everything, and then towels.

'Something hopefully none of us will ever have to experience'

"Crossing into Ukraine was terrifying; there were no street lights on, there were abandoned vehicles that were just ram-shacked, they had had everything removed from them and just left there. These were desperate people that couldn't wait to get across the border with their vehicle, which they could have done but it would have been hours later.

"These people were terrified, they left their vehicle – the only thing they probably had of value – to get their family safely across the border as quickly as possible. That's something hopefully none of us will ever have to experience, but if that had happened in any of the nearby countries of France or Germany, or even Poland, then this would be over instantly.

"I met Sophia; she is a woman who is organising and sending supplies to where they need to go, and she took me down into their bomb shelter and said to me, 'it's ok, we don't use the bomb shelter that often'.

"'That often' – seriously? In how many other countries would they contemplate that using the bomb shelter rarely was appropriate? It was horrifying that she was so casual about it.

"I was in Lviv, ferrying refugees from Lviv to the Polish border. Because there was about an eight-hour queue at the border and I had to take people to it, not cross it, and then go back and pick more up. I managed to get about 65 people out of Lviv train station and they had to leave everything, buggies, everything at the train station for others to take.

"I then met up with Sophia and they had nothing but she still made me a sandwich and a coffee. These are very humble, wonderfully amazing people who just want their country back.

"It's not far away, it's really not that far away, it's 1,200 miles away. And these are people that want nothing to do with a war; these are children, mothers, fathers, all sorts of people that want nothing to do with a war.

"I then took the remaining supplies to the Palace of Arts in Lviv, a beautiful building. Lviv is full of beautiful architecture and history, a cross of Austrian and Hungarian culture, the streets are all cobbled but it's weird to see that you have people clearly terrified at the station waiting to get out and, on the other side, I saw this old chap cleaning the streets. It was just bizarre; someone trying to live their life, someone trying to escape.

"There are a lot off supplies in Lviv now and that is getting distributed across the country because of the Place of Arts and these people fighting to make sure others have supplies when they need it.

'I hate that I couldn't help everyone'

"I had countless messages and contact from Ukrainian people asking if I could pick them up from other people. There was one woman in a wheelchair; she had been living in a bomb shelter in Kyiv since it started and her family were messaging me asking if I could go and get her. I couldn't, I hate that I couldn't but there's just so many people there right now. The safest thing for her to do was just be in the bunker and wait for all this to end and we have no idea when this is going to end.

"Then I obviously returned exhausted. I realised I had just been going off drenaline and caffeine. I needed to sleep a lot more than on the way there."

Now Tom is planning his second trip to Ukraine and is recruiting volunteers to drive a convoy of vehicles into the war-torn country, including two out of use ambulances and at least four 4x4s, which will eventually be left behind in Ukraine.

These will be filled with supplies including medical kits, specialist medicines, burn kits, thermal imaging equipment to find people in rubble, and a piece of equipment known as 'the jaws of life' which can cut open vehicles, and non-lethal military equipment such as boots, armour, helmets and radios.

After travelling into Ukraine, the convoy will be split into two groups – one staying in Lviv to deliver supplies and ferry out refugees, and one driving to the military border with the non-lethal equipment.

"It was quite upsetting for me to see the Ukraine military," said Tom.

"You will have seen pictures of them wearing skating 'armour' – knee pads, elbow pads and that's as far as their equipment goes. They don't have helmets or military equipment.

"At the check points they are all armed but all armed with different weapons and that shouldn't happen, you should be able to pass your weapon onto someone else and it be the same. They are just doing what they need to do to defend their country."

Travelling to 'extreme environment'

Tom has warned those thinking about volunteering for the trip that they will be travelling to an "extreme environment" and they should consider carefully whether they are comfortable with this and speak to loved ones first, with no judgement if they later decide to pull out.

The convoy will be leaving The Shave Cross Inn at 12noon on Monday, March 14 and returning on either Friday or Saturday, March 19 or 20. Those interested in joining should contact Tom or Georgia in advance at The Shave Cross Inn or via Facebook.

Tom added: "It is beautiful to see how much the UK want to do something. We have managed to raise £18,500 on the Justgiving page – 514 people have donated money and that's not a lot of people for the amount of money we've got, it's insane to think about that.

"The Lyme Regis community and surrounding community have really seen what we're collecting and it's been astonishing, they've really thought about it, they've not just dropped off a bag of junk. We will make sure it gets to where it needs to get.

"There's a lot of opinion about whether what we're doing is really helping and I'm not going to go into it, I'm not going to politically get into it, but all that matters is getting aid into Ukraine. I know there's a lot of charities working on that, in my experience I have sadly not seen much of it, that's just my personal experience and I'm not saying it's not happening.

"My priority is to help out as much as possible."

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