A businesswoman whose career was put on hold when serious spinal surgery left her unable to move has won a national award in a competition recognising extraordinary women.

Lyndsey Young, a 42-year-old mum-of-two, from Bottesford, caught the judges' attention because of her determination to make her dream a reality.

She won the entrepreneurship category of the Extraordinary Women Awards.

Lyndsey was struck down with spondylolisthesis, a displacement of the vertebrae, 10 years ago – just as a fledgling catering business was taking off.

She said: "I had been to Nottingham Trent University and gained a first class degree in business management.

"As part of the course, I had come up with a business proposal to set up a healthy catering company for the corporate market.

"I decided to give it a go and, within a year, I was about to take on staff when my legs gave way from under me one day."

She had three operations and was laid up for several months before taking a job with a local authority. She still suffers a lack of sensation at the tops of her legs, but is otherwise okay.

In an idle moment, she put her name forward for a then new TV quiz show, Deal or No Deal, and won £15,500.

She used the money to launch a new business, creating her own brand of food labels.

As a mother of two young boys, Lyndsey was always throwing food away because she couldn't remember when it had been opened.

She came up with the idea for a simple scratch off label that would allow busy parents like her to keep track of when food had been opened, so they would always know whether it should be thrown away without relying on the taste test.

Lyndsey said: "I set up my business a couple of years ago and I love it. It's everything I dream about. For someone to think that what I do is extraordinary, and to give me an award, is fantastic."

Her labels were immediately listed by national kitchenware retailer, Lakeland Ltd.

Other national stockists followed as well as orders from the US, Spain and Poland.

She currently operates her business from a shed converted into an office in the garden of her Belvoir Road home, but is in talks with manufacturers about having her labels produced as part of the packaging.

Lyndsey has also established a local business mums' group in Bottesford, offering support to other would-be entrepreneurs in her community. She also wants to encourage the next generation of creative thinkers, and runs Think it Make it, an after-school club in the village designed to challenge pupils to think about design and the application of ideas.

Extraordinary Women organiser Vicki Espin, said: "We were blown away by the support the awards have had this year."