Charity will honour a‘toon’ legend

Mar 5 2009 by Roger Domeneghetti, The Journal

A CHARITY appeal has been launched to raise £1.5m to honour a Newcastle legend.

Fans favourite Charlie Crowe, now 84, spent 14 glory-filled years at St James’s Park during the successful seasons of the late 40s and 1950s, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1998, when he lived in Wallsend with his wife Ruth, 82.

His daughter Lesley Edmondson kicked off the Charlie Crowe Appeal to raise the money needed for a scanner to help the North East’s 31,000 Alzheimer’s sufferers.

The Magentic Resonance scanner will be used at Newcastle University’s Campus for Aging and Vitality, where 61-year-old Lesley is a secretary.

It will allow scientists to carry out a wider range of scans and learn more about what happens in the brain of an Alzheimer’s sufferer.

Walker-born Charlie is now living at the Hunter Hall in Wallsend – a specialist care home for people suffering from Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

Anyone wanting to donate to the Charlie Crowe appeal can do so at www.charliecroweappeal.com or by writing to Charity Fund Office, Charlie Crowe Appeal, Room 203, Cheviot Court, Freeman Hospital, NE7 7DN.