Category Archives: Christian’s Story

A Christmas Update

We have a few bits of news so thought it would be a good idea to do a quick blog post to update our friends and followers on what has been happening.

  1. We are almost ready for the Santa visit on the 21st December, as usual Pete will be donning the Santa outfit and will be accompanied by his helpful elf Christian. It is amazing how quite a lot of kids are quite frightened of the 6′ 4″ santa but all love his elf! Thank you very much to our trustees Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox for ordering and wrapping the presents and for Hugh from Boy Meets Girl Photography, who is donating his time and skills for free on the day.
  2. Waitrose in Sevenoaks have The Christian Blandford Fund as one of their nominated charities. Please drop by and pop the green coin into the middle bin!
    The CBF at Waitrose

    Christian

    The CBF

    The CBF

     

    Jess

    Jess

  3. Christian wrote a lovely piece of music for a string quartet. As proud parents we hope you don’t mind us sharing it!

 

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The New Beacon choir sing Christian’s carol

Christian is in the Chapel Choir at the New Beacon School and they had their Advent service at the beautiful chapel at Tonbridge school. The junior school choir sang Christian’s composition, “The Snow”, while he played the piano.

If any parent wants photos of the event they can be downloaded from here.

This is a time of year to appreciate what we have and to help others that are less fortunate. Darren and Amy are currently ordering and wrapping toys for Santa to deliver to children who are unlucky enough to be in St George’s over Christmas. We continue to work to work closely with Martin at Samuel’s charity and look forward to continuing to improve children’s comfort in hospitals in 2016.

Merry Christmas!

Christian

Peter Blandford’s photo

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Father Christmas at St George’s

We had a great day handing out presents at St George’s helped by the wonderful play specialists. The photos are on facebook here and also here where parents can download hi-res versions using the username guest and the password Christmas. Thank you very much for the very talented photographer Hugh Miller who gave up his time and skills in order to help us out.

Santa 2014I received a nice e-mail after one of our Santa visits which i thought it would be good to share, I have changed the names to maintain anonymity.

I just wanted to say “thank-you” on behalf of my son Jack, who received a lovely teddy. It really cheered him up, as did the visit from father xmas and his little helper: his eyes lit up when he saw them (I think he was thinking “oh no, the door’s opening, someone in a uniform is coming to do something nasty to me”) and was lovely for his dad and mum to see. As you can appreciate, being in an isolation room at xmas is pretty grim for a kid. Jack has been poorly all his life and is a “regular” at St George’s, despite living 60 miles away in West Sussex. The distance makes it particularly difficult as his brother, Henry, who he is very close to, has to stay at his Grandma’s during his many stays at St George’s, so we are all split up as a family. Luckily, we were put on “home leave” for xmas but must return next Friday.

I think your charity is brilliant. As soon as I read the poster in the posh new parents room I could tell that the person who wrote it had a real insight into life for kids and their families in this situation that only personal experience (unfortunately) can bring.

Merry xmas to you all and keep up the good work!

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Christian’s Christmas carol sung by The Cantus Ensemble at Sevenoaks School

Christian loves to play the piano and write his own music, this year he entered a competition run by Sevenoaks School to write a Christmas Carol for a 5 part choir. The winners and runners up in each age group got their song sung by the incredible London based Cantus Ensemble at the Christmas Carol concert in the school .

We are very proud that Christian’s lovely song got awarded 2nd place in the year 7 and 8 competition. It is called The Snow and all the words, piano music and vocals were written by him.

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Claudia’s Christmas Market

On November 20th Claudia opened the house to about 80 friends who came along to support The Christian Blandford Fund, and do a spot of Christmas shopping.

Coco Cuscino brought along beautiful bespoke cushions, soft furnishings and gifts,  Anahita displayed luscious smelling homemade beauty products and Phoenix had a table overflowing with gift wrap, cards, note books and much more.  Upstairs Ben & Lucy from The Square Salon were busy with manicures and hairstyles, Miss Captain and Little Captain had rails full of fashionable clothing for ladies and children, Ochre had some gorgeous cashmere, silk and wool tops, pashmina’s and scarves whilst Stella & Dot brought a bit of sparkle to the event with some stunning jewellery.  Cakes and nibbles were courtesy of Sara Hester from Tandem Catering and Top Table provided us with tea pots, cafetieres, milk jugs, cups, glasses, teaspoons and much more.

We raised a massive £2410 and more money is still coming in online.  Thank you to everyone who supported this event.

Many people bought raffle tickets that helped towards the final total. We thought Christian should pick the lucky winners…

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More edits to Christian’s Story

I have had a bit of time to work on the Christian’s Story Page and added a new event which I omitted the first time around….

28th September 2007

Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer!

We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function, for example, is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved.

There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him.

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Updated Christian’s Story page

I received an email yesterday from a lady whose 4 year old son has just had a relapse from a Wilm’s Tumour, a very similar situation we were in a few years ago. She told me that Christian’s story has given her a glimmer of hope during a terrible and frightening time. The fact that it has helped at least one person has given me the inspiration to go through Christian’s Story  page and get rid of dead links and break the text up with some pictures.

The fact is, children do recover from relapsed cancer, and Christian is living proof, we sincerely wish the best for Karen and her family.

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Quick visit to Great Ormond Street

Claudia is with Christian at Great Ormond Street Hospital today for a biennial check up on his kidney. It’s a good reminder of how lucky we are.

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Piano Playing at Grandfather’s Wedding

Christian is still doing well, and his piano playing is improving, he recently played the piano at the church service for his grand father’s, wedding. Congratulations Bob and Annie!

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Christian’s new Hobby – Writing 3D Games

CBlogo

Christian’s latest hobby is game writing, you can try his latest games here.

games.christianblandford.com

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