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Posted by PaulClabburn on Jan 3, 2017 in 2017, Cardiac Risk in the Young, Tom Clabburn

Please keep running up that hill for @CRY_UK

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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Posted by PaulClabburn on Dec 5, 2016 in 2016, BBC, Book sale, Cardiac Risk in the Young, Claire Prosser, Fund-raising event, Tom Clabburn

BBC book sale raises £650 for @CRY_UK

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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Posted by PaulClabburn on Jun 23, 2016 in 2016, Cardiac Risk in the Young, CRY London Bridges Walk, Tom Clabburn

Please walk on Sunday for @CRY_UK

Claire and Tom

This Sunday is CRY’s 10th Heart of London Bridges Walk. We’ll be walking again to remember Tom and Claire.

Please join us if you can – we’d love to see you and you can register on the day.

Full details are here but please be aware that the walk starts from a new location – Potters Fields Park near Tower Bridge.

Hope to see you there.

Posted by PaulClabburn on Jan 9, 2016 in 2016, Awareness, Cardiac Risk in the Young, Claire Prosser, CRY screenings, Tom Clabburn

Your money in action for @CRY_UK

Left to right: CRY founder Alison Cox, research fellow Dr Keteepe-Arachi and patron Ben Brown.

This morning I went to see your latest fund-raising efforts turn into potentially life-saving work at the CRY Centre For Inherited Cardiovascular Conditions and Sports Cardiology, St George’s Hospital, Tooting.

All the running, climbing, book-selling, cake baking and myriad other activities you’ve taken part in since our fund started in 2008 has now raised more than £150,000 for CRY.

So it was great to

See the first of six days of subsidised screenings get underway. The fund is supporting the screenings between January and March at a cost of £18,000. Young people aged 14-35 attend from all over the UK and around 110 screenings are booked per session.
Have a look at the brand new echocardiogram machine sporting Tom and Claire’s names that was bought at a cost of £27,000.
Meet Dr Tracey Keteepe-Arachi, the CRY research fellow who was leading the day’s screening programme. Our fund has donated £10,000 towards research.

It was particularly fitting that the BBC’s Ben Brown, family friend and CRY patron, was able to attend the launch because he represents each and every one of you who has ever supported CRY. Not only has Ben done whatever he can to raise awareness, he has also fund-raised by putting in the hard miles running half and full marathons.

It was also, of course, a pleasure to have a chat once again with Alison Cox. CRY’s founder may have stepped down as Chief Executive but she is still getting up at the crack on a Saturday morning to support events such as these.

Last year alone, CRY screened 23,000 young people. It shows a need, it shows the demand, but there’s a long way to go before there’s a national screening programme to replace the efforts of CRY. Since starting in 1995, the charity has screened more than 80,000 young people.

Part of that total is down to you. On the way home I heard Patti Smith on Radio 4’s Saturday Live. She talked about writing the song ‘People Have The Power’, which includes the line ‘We can turn the world around.’ Because of your efforts to turn at least one part of the world around, Tom and Claire’s Fund has sponsored more than 1,200 of those screenings.

That’s 1,200 who have been given a chance Tom did not have.

For today at least, then, it seems right to reflect with great pride on the efforts of a remarkable group of CRY supporters, a group that has raised £150,000 in Tom and Claire’s names.

Thank you.

The echo bought with your fund-raising efforts.

Posted by PaulClabburn on Jun 3, 2015 in 2015, Awareness, BBC, Claire Prosser, Life After Tom, Tom Clabburn

Claire’s ‘Life After Tom’ documentary now available on BBC iPlayer Radio.

Life After Tom on BBC iPlayer Radio.

Claire’s BBC Radio 4 documentary, ‘Life After Tom’, is now available on BBC iPlayer Radio.

You can find it here.

The programme, written and narrated by Claire, was first broadcast in October, 2008, and describes how she navigated the first 12 months after Tom’s death.

That it is now available on demand is due to the efforts of Claire’s friend – and producer of the programme – Linda Pressly.

Having listened to it again, it seems to me to have withstood the test of time and therefore stands as a fitting tribute to Claire, both as a mother and as a journalist.

PC, June 3, 2015.

Posted by PaulClabburn on Dec 19, 2014 in 2014, Claire Prosser, Donations, Tom Clabburn

You’ve done it – you’ve raised more than £100,000 for CRY

Tom and Claire

Claire wanted to raise £100,000 for CRY in Tom’s memory – and we asked you if you’d help to achieve that in memory of both Tom and Claire.

You’ve done that and more.

As of this morning, donations to what is now Tom and Claire’s Fund stand in excess of £110,000 since we first began fund-raising in 2008. There is still more money coming in.

All we can say is a huge “THANK YOU”.

Our focus will remain on working with CRY to provide free heart screenings for young people in west London. Our belief – Claire’s belief – is that screening can make a difference.

It can help to challenge a dreadful statistic – that 12 young people aged 14-35, like Tom, die each week from an undiagnosed heart condition.

Since we lost Tom in 2007, CRY’s figures suggest a further 4,500 young people will have died. The vast majority could have been saved with a simple test:

One in every 300 that CRY tests – and CRY has tested more than 70,000 young people – will be identified with a potentially life threatening condition.

One in every 100 will have a condition that is less serious but could cause problems in later life.

Like other health screening programmes, it can’t yet identify all those at risk. But in Italy, where screening is mandatory for all young people engaged in organised sport, they have reduced the incidence of young sudden cardiac death by 89%.

To read more on the latest research, click here.

But for now, all we’d like to say once again is a huge “THANK YOU”.

Paul and Ellen x

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