Charlie Bear is still raising cash

Sep 29 2009 by Avril Deane

The Journal is backing the Charlie Bear for Cancer Care charity, which has raised millions for those suffering the condition. Former reporter Avril Deane has played a pivotal role in the charity and she takes a fond look back at her time with the charity

IN June this year at an uplifting wartime commemorative lunch a man at my table introduced himself.

“You don’t know me,” he said, “but my late wife was an original Charlie Bear fundraiser. I remember how involved you were …”

Involved. Well, that’s one way of putting it. I lived it. And loved it … singularly the most emotionally rewarding project of my life and one which I would never have experienced were it not for my much-loved job with The Journal.

Thinking back to those days I can scarcely believe it was half my lifetime ago. Back then, that £1m target seemed as far away as the moon – not a figure that today would take some Premiership footballers a matter of weeks to bank.

Still, Man went to the Moon and thanks to tens of thousands of people not just in the North but all over the country and even in far-flung corners of the world, more than a million pounds was raised to alter dramatically the lives of cancer patients in our region.

Meeting cancer sufferer Daisy Clark, the lady who inspired the fund, who named it after her late husband Charles when he died suddenly of a heart attack, who sewed thousands of teddy bears, all by hand, even when she herself was pain-stricken or woozy from her medication, was surely one of the pivotal moments in my life. Daisy became like a second mum to me, came to my wedding, was thrilled when we named our first son Charlie, and absolutely embodied the old adage that where there’s a will there’s a way.

She never gave up – nor let anyone else give up – on her desire to get a whole body scanner installed at Newcastle General Hospital. And she would have loved to know that her fund had kept on going, putting patients first, for all this time.

In the early days of Charlie Bear, awareness of the charity was low and cancer was probably the most feared word in our language.

People didn’t talk about it as they do now. Thinking positive was a skill in itself and many people had to learn it from scratch without being properly prepared – or equipped – to do it.

In its own way Charlie Bear changed all that.