A fund created in the memory of a retired Dorset-lover is helping disadvantaged young people to follow their dream careers.

Paul Cornes’ partner Tom Flood chose Dorset Community Foundation to set up the Paul Cornes Fund in memory of the 64-year-old, who died last June. Proceeds from the fund are used to support the Dorset Bursary Fund, which gives grants of up to £1,000 to help young people aged 16 to 25 take up vocational studies they could not otherwise afford. The grants support students at six colleges and are used for travel to college, buying required equipment (including laptops) and for essential study trips.

This year it awarded £31,000 to 60 youngsters to help them take up courses in 2020/21. Among the subjects they will be studying are blacksmithery, animal care and uniformed public services.

Tom said, “The legacy of the fund is terribly important to me and what I want people to know is I am just enormously proud of Paul and what he did in his life. What I would like most of all is to help young people do one of the things he thought was most important – to be able to make something of themselves.

“At 18 he became the first person in his family to go to the polytechnic and got his degree, much to the annoyance of his father who thought he should have got a job.

“It always stuck with Paul that he was the first person in his family who went to college.”

Tom met Paul in London in 1997 when Paul was working for Prudential as its head of social responsibility. He moved on to legal firm Linklaters in a similar role.

“When he found out that only partners travelled business class, he freaked out and resigned because that was Paul, he never went economy,” said Tom, who worked in the voluntary sector and was chief executive of community volunteering charity Conservation Volunteers when he retired.

“Paul retired at 54 and he was fine with that, he was very good at keeping himself busy.”

The couple moved to Boscombe in 2010 after spotting a flat at Honeycombe Beach and then six years ago they moved to Talbot Woods.