Page 259 - She's One Crazy Lady!

A Charity is Born
With my teaching career behind me, as much as it hurt, I had to look forward. All I can say is, ‘Thank goodness for Crazy Hats!’ Crazy Hats was a lifeline for me. It was never my intention to progress with charity work but now it seemed to be the most natural route to take, to help people in a different way, for even at this stage I could see there was so much potential. What did one of my pupils say? “You’re a teacher of breast cancer now.” Well, medically, I was not a teacher of breast cancer of course, but hoped I, and others, would be able to support and educate people about breast cancer in other ways and encourage them to talk about it.
Now, dear readers, this is where I am going to pause, regroup and think about how best to tell you how our Charity was officially ‘born’ and how it grew.
How on earth do I condense twenty amazing years into one chapter? For during that time I had amassed:
• twenty-one detailed personal diaries.
• seventeen Charity diaries.
• dozens of what I called my ‘day notebooks’.
• the Charity’s meaty newsletters.
• hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.
• hundreds of letters and cards.
• copies of all advertising materials produced.
• minutes of Trustees and Committee Reports.
• annual accounts documentation.
• over 33,000+ photographs – all stored online or as hard copies!!!
• ‘millions’ of memories...
If you could see my room as I write this, there are piles of paperwork and boxes of memorabilia ‘everywhere’! Never have I lived in such a pickle and I cannot wait to get my flat back!
So that this doesn’t turn into a ‘Concise History of Crazy Hats’ or, as some suggested, ‘The War and Peace of Breast Cancer’, I will attempt to share with you the key points and ‘my highlights’... with lots of photos!
Here we go then...
Before I start, however, I want to add a disclaimer. You will appreciate that over the course of the Charity’s life we were
to meet thousands of people who kindly made ‘donations’ either by putting money into a collection pot, buying
a badge, a raffle
ticket, donating goods, giving their time or by organising a fundraising event for us – the list
is endless – people
who were incredibly thoughtful, generous
and supportive! If I were to include ‘everyone’
and ‘everything’ this already long book, would necessitate a sequel. Therefore, I apologise now and want you to know that whatever any one individual, what any one group did to support Crazy Hats – however
big – however small,
ALL efforts were truly appreciated, very much valued and were equally important.
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