The first Cardiac Risk in the Young London Bridges Walk since 2019 took place on Sunday, June 26.
Around 650 walkers had registered for the five and a half mile walk over London’s Bridges.
Ten of the participants made up Team Tom 15 and we are extremely grateful to all those who walked this year.
The Glastonbury extension to Team Tom featured Ellen and friends …
Team Tom walked for the 14th time in support of Cardiac Risk in the Young on Sunday. Unusually, the walk took place both inside, outside and at three different locations.
The main group took a circular route via Kew and Chiswick Bridges. Those taking part included primary school classmates of Tom. Before setting out, a minute’s silence was held for Tom and all those like him. We also remembered Gottfried Panzer, who died recently.
Gottfried, who gave Tom his first Saturday job, was a staunch supporter of CRY. He and family have taken part in countless CRY Heart of London Bridges walks. This year, Gottfried’s wife, Linda, and one of their daughter’s, Ali, did their own walk in Surrey.
With several of those who had planned to take part having to isolate in compliance with COVID guidelines, Lisa Neaverson still did her utmost to join in the spirt of the occasion, climbing the stairs at her home 140 times.
Ellen Clabburn said: “We are extremely grateful, as ever, to all those who took part. It is amazing how many people give up time to highlight that we are still losing 12 young people aged under 35 every week to undiagnosed heart conditions. Thank you, too, to those who donated on the day. We hope to have news soon about a possible resumption of screening in the Ealing area.”
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The 2018 Andrew Carter Memorial Mile will take place in Lammas Park, Ealing, this coming Saturday to raise money for The Tom Clabburn Memorial Fund and Cardiac Risk in the Young.
It’s free of charge and you can run, jog or walk the course. You can register here.
The memorial mile is organised by Ealing Half Marathon and follows the death of Andrew Carter. Andrew took part in the event in 2014 but collapsed shortly before the end of the race from a cardiac arrest. He died on October 1, 2014.
The event’s organisers said: “Join us and run this great course, it is the perfect way to start a Saturday morning and to raise funds for a worthy cause. All we ask is that all runners make a donation to the collection tin on the day or donate online here to The Tom Clabburn Fund.
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There are 10 or fewer places left to book for our latest free heart screenings for young people aged between 14-35. The screenings are taking place on Thursday, April 6, at Drayton Manor High School, Drayton Bridge Road, London, W7 1EU.
You can book a screening by going here.
If you do book, please make every effort to attend. If you can’t attend for any reason, please let CRY know.
If you have any queries, please contact CRY rather than the school or us. Contact details for CRY are here.
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This year will mark the 10th anniversary of Tom’s death. It’s a decade in which so many have campaigned and fund-raised in his memory for Cardiac Risk in the Young.
So this, of course, is to ask you not to stop. Why? Because by the time October’s anniversary comes around, we will have lost 6,000 or more young people aged between 14-35 since that day in 2007. How many could have been saved by a national heart screening programme? The vast majority.
Yet nothing looks likely to change in the short-term. The UK National Screening Committee, which advises the Government, isn’t due until 2018/2019 to review its advice – which is currently not to recommend a screening programme. That means you can add another 600-1200 young deaths to the total before there’s even a chance that things might change.
It’s a frustrating situation. We know that CRY’s research is rooted in the more than 100,000 screenings it has carried out. We know that its screening programme is led by an internationally acknowledged expert, in Professor Sanjay Sharma. We know from the evidence of Tom and Claire’s Fund screenings that cardiac testing can help to identify those who need further medical intervention (evidence which is also reflected at countless CRY family screenings throughout the UK and at CRY’s national screening centre).
None of that seems to be enough.
We, therefore, begin a new year with an old plea: there are loads of good causes out there but please consider supporting Tom and Claire’s Fund and CRY. We’re holding two more screening days in Ealing in Spring and Autumn, 2017, and it’s only through your commitment that such events can take place.
Wishing everyone a peaceful and healthy new year.
Paul and Ellen x
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Left to right, Mariita, Ruth, Jacky and Anne Marie.
A book sale at the BBC’s New Broadcasting House headquarters raised £650 for Tom and Claire’s Fund and CRY.
The event, on Thursday, December 1, the second anniversary of Claire’s death, was organised by her friend and colleague Ruth Akins-Arulanandam.
“We had a wonderful contribution of books from 5Live (Jessica Latimer) and we also had an unexpected top up of from the Victoria Derbyshire show (Monica Soriano),” said Ruth.
“The lovely Lorna Donlon bought in some gorgeous chocolate cakes which were sold within the hour.
“The book sale wouldn’t have happened without Gillian Dear who organised the space and helped collect the books in the lead-up to the event. On the day we had Suzanne Yates, Jacky Hems, Mariita Eager, Anne Marie Ballantyne, Madeline Ferguson, Dhruti Shah and Smitha Mundasad helping to sell as much as they could in aid of CRY.
“It was a day tinged with sadness as it has been two years since the passing of our dear friend Claire. This made us all the more determined to raise as many funds as we could in memory of Claire and Tom.
“It was lovely to spend the day with Claire’s friends and former colleagues, remembering her; she is missed by so many people. The sale came to a wonderful end when we realised how much we had raised in aid of CRY.
“Suzanne Yates also took the opportunity to take the remaining books to Oxfam on Marylebone high street, something Claire used to do herself at the end of a book sale.”
Ellen Clabburn said: “We really appreciate the effort made by Ruth and all those who helped. It was a lovely thing to do as Mum specialised in book sales for CRY. They are such a good way to raise both funds and awareness.”
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