Page 298 - She's One Crazy Lady!

when ‘opportunists’ would steal the boxes and/or, establishments were broken into. Such incidents were rare but upsetting so it was yet another steep learning curve!
Standing in the shopping centres was another new experience too, and when I look back at photographs of those special days I have to smile at how simple and basic our first stands were. But they worked! Jayne had coerced the Mayor and Mayoress of Wellingborough, David and Agnes Smith, to come along and they loved it, as did other Mayors and local MP’s who were to become regular visitors and helpers, many choosing us as their Charity of the Year when they were in Office. Sales of badges were immense and our stand could be likened to that of a magnet, with people being drawn in to see us, many of them, telling us their personal cancer stories or those of loved ones. It was incredible that sales often topped £2,000 in one day just by selling badges at £1.00 each – nothing else – other memorabilia being brought in as the charity progressed and at the Public’s request. Teddy bears had to feature, of course, and initially we designed our very own bear, a cute and cuddly bear that donned a pink mortar board. These were a great seller but unfortunately the cost of making them rose dramatically so we resorted to manufactured teddies who all wore a Crazy Hats T-shirt and were just as popular. Our pink pens were, without doubt our best seller – everybody needing a pen – and the profit margins good.
We later produced a pewter mortar board badge – for the men who didn’t like to admit they were keen on pink – and in future years, involved children in designing a new hat badge, always inviting the winners and their parents to come and stand with us when we had sales days with Sue (Osborne), one of my ex-parents from Whitefriars, skilfully making the child’s design into an actual hat for the child and myself to wear. Every year we would have a different badge and even had ‘bra’ badges designed which were a real talking point. We also designed commemorative badges when milestones were reached – £1m, £2m, £3m... collectors from all over the country and abroad loved those.
The following year, Jayne, having organised more fundraising events, again sponsored our next badge – our ‘blue hat’ badge. She even went to great lengths to decorate her shop windows for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Like our stalls, her shop acted as a magnet. One thing we found interesting was the number of men who came to our stalls – many didn’t want a badge but would simply put money into the box or into collection tins that we had introduced. We could see by their faces they had their reasons. We often wondered what their stories
were...
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