It is becoming an annual event, The Bowler and Hancox Families wrap up the presents and Peter, Henry and Christian pop over to St George’s as Santa and his two helpers. Today was very special with some really lovely children who seemed very happy with the visit. We hope they all get back to the comfort of their homes soon.
The photos are all here, we have made it so the photos are all downloadable in hi-res for the parents of the children that Santa saw.
Just before Christmas, Christian, Peter and Henry went to St George’s again to be Santa and elves and hand out presents to children unfortunate enough to be in hospital during the festive period.
The Bowler family and the Hancox family did a great job of wrapping all the present and delivering them so they were ready for Santa to hand them out. This year we bought more than ever so plenty were left over for arrivals on or just after Christmas. Neil Berrecloth popped in to help and the play specialists, very efficient in sorting out the right presents for each child.
There are more photos on Facebook
The next day, I got this lovely e-mail
I just wanted to say “thank-you” on behalf of my son Alex, 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. Alex 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 William, 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!
Four mum’s from Clapham are taking part in an amazing cycle ride to Paris. These are their words not mine…
Who would have thought any good could ever come from a mid-life crisis?? Turning 40 years can make people do the strangest of things – we have bought a lot of lycra and decided to cycle from London to Paris – for one weekend only “Blondes on Bikes” go on tour!
The “Blondes on Bikes” team is a small collection of 40ish year old mums with a total of 10 children between us. We all live Wandsworth, so our local hospital is St Georges. It is no surprise that St Georges provides a full range of General Paediatric Medicine inpatient and outpatient services. There are five children’s wards including eight Paediatric Intensive Care Unit beds for critically ill children. The BoB team feels lucky that it has not had to use any of these services, but being in the heart of “nappy valley” there are plenty of families that have and the wonderful resources available are stretched to their limit.
Peter put on a Father Christmas outfit and went to St George’s to hand out presents with his two little helpers Henry and Christian.
There are more photos here. Some parents wanted copies of the photos, they can be ordered directly from photobox. If you have not used them before send me an e-mail at peter@theblandfords.com and I’ll send you an offer code for 50 free prints. A big thank you to Hugh Miller, the very talented photographer who took the photos for us and donated his time and expertise.
It was a lot of fun, made easy by the very organised play specialists at St George’s. Thank you also to Darren, Corrine, Emily and Amy for collecting wrapping and delivering the presents to the Hospital, they truly did all the hard work!
The presents were all paid for from The Christian Blandford Fund and we are very grateful to the enormous support that we receive from the friends that support us.
It was great to see Maz, one of the very skillful nurses at St George’s using the portable ultra sound machine that we supplied. At over £20,000 it is not in the NHS budget but makes inserting needles into children’s veins a much less traumatic and painful experience. Something we felt strongly was worth our investment!
So we can continue this kind of work, please consider us if you are raising money for a charity event or are about to make a festive charity donation. Thank and Merry christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox are trustees of the Christian Blandford fund and joined me on a visit to St George’s to discuss future projects and look at some of the recent purchases and projects we have been involved with. Here are some of the pictures.
Villa Rental in Begur, Spain
