Ghyll Head launching the Kath Fry Award

The Friends of Ghyll Head has initiated the Kath Fry Award to mark her special role in promoting and preserving Ghyll Head. They had hoped that she might be able to be there when the award is launched at the presentation to the winners of the Millenium Challenge (which it will replace) on Monday 16th May at 1.45pm at Loreto High School in Chorlton. Sadly this will not be possible, but in a way this makes it even more of an appropriate recognition and memorial.

Funeral Arrangements

The date for the funeral is Friday 27th May.

The ceremony will be at 2pm at the Manchester Crematorium, Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 7GZ (http://www.manchestercrematorium.co.uk/contact.htm)

Followed by a gathering at 3:30pm at the Woodstock Arms, 139 Barlow Moor Road, Manchester, M20 2DY (http://www.thewoodstockarmsdidsbury.co.uk/findus/) for people to chat, reminisce, eat and drink. There will be a pay bar with a provided buffet with tea and coffee.

Please note that the crematorium has a capacity for 100 people, so given that there may be a lot of people who wish to attend, please be aware that there may be some over spill and if it is likely to rain take appropriate precautions (it is Manchester... it will rain!).

Please remember that we do not want flowers and instead would like donations for the Friends of Ghyll Head. Please see http://www.justgiving.com/kath-fry/ if you would like to donate online.

We would like people to add to a memories book at the Woodstock Arms part so if you have any cuttings or written down memories or photos that you would like to stick into the book, please bring them along. I am adding to the photos online http://www.flickr.com/photos/dentonpotter/sets/72157626668680308/ as people send them to me and as I am scanning more.

Some pictures to remember

I am uploading some pictures to my flickr pages here. If anyone has information about any people who are also in the photos or when they were taken, please feel free to add comments to each one. Also please feel free to send me any photos you have that you think could go up there.

Sad News

Sorry to announce this way, but this is to pass the news as quickly as we can without too many phone calls. Kath sadly died on the morning of Thursday 5th May, in Accident and Emergency at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. She was very breathless in the night and we called an ambulance. The initial diagnosis was that she had a chest infection, which they thought would be fine to treat with intravenous antibiotics, but she went downhill very quickly and passed away at about 10:45am. Pete and I were both with her at the time. It was very quick and she did not have unnecessary prolonged suffering or pain. There will be a post mortem which the GP thinks will show that the cancer had spread and that was what the main cause of death rather than a chest infection.

I will post details of funeral once we have made arrangements. You can imagine we are naturally pretty shocked, since she had been reasonably well, although not as well as people might have thought from her upbeat blog. We cannot make any firm arrangements until after the result of the post mortem which will likely be late next week.

It seems fitting that Kath should pass away on election day and having cast her vote already by postal ballot. She would have been very pleased with the results in Manchester. Thanks to Cllr Hughes for his tribute to Kath - Newly-elected Gorton North Labour Councillor John Hughes added: “I am dedicating this victory to former Labour councillor Kath Fry who died of cancer yesterday.” (see here - last paragraph) and Councillor Peter Cookson for the same (according to Twitter).

Being Kath's children we'll be up front and ask you not to send any flowers or other gifts of condolence (well cakes are OK) but we plan to ask for donations instead to go to Friends of Ghyll Head, which was a cause very close to her heart. I have enabled comments for people with Gmail accounts on the blog, so we are happy if you wish to leave messages here.

Not very eventful week but more positive information on the 'wellbeing' front

Apart from the continuing glorious weather, the highlight of Saturday 23rd was the new ‘Dr Who’ episode, and Sunday we just chilled out (and I did some more ‘stuff’ sorting), but Bank holiday Monday was a bit more eventful. Karen and I drove up to a local ‘tourist site’ - Ryecroft Hall which had pretty impressive gardens (owned by Tameside Council) but then gave up trying to get into another local garden centre (because of the queues).  In the evening we went to the Chernobyl 25th Anniversary memorial concert (organised by Lydia) at St Ann’s church in the city centre.  Les’s Beech Road band was in good form with their English and Irish folk tunes and Bolton Clarion choir were in good voice.  It was lovely to see all my former singing colleagues and I mouthed along to the words of the Russian song we learned nearly 2 years ago.  The evening was part of a world-wide memorial and particularly poignant in the light of the Fukushima catastrophe.  

On Tuesday, the District nurse came to check out Karen's wound dressings and the GP called to discuss my new pain med regime and make a referral to the consultant at St Ann’s Hospice for an in-depth discussion about ‘prognosis’ etc. Then Peter, Karen and I had a lovely afternoon with cousins Colin and Anne.  On Wednesday, Karen drove down to Northampton (to pick up more of her ‘stuff’ and see friends) and Peter came to stay over for the night.  I had some pampering in the afternoon (Pedicure and Reflexology), but more importantly, received through the post a lovely letter from Terri (Bolton choir) and information about an organisation called ‘canceractive’ which is a non-profit-making organisation dedicated to publishing information for cancer patients on research, what the various drugs are designed to do (and their side effects), treatments (alternative and otherwise) and is basically about improving one’s wellbeing and holding the disease at bay as much as possible.  I’m very interested in all this (and have nothing to lose from trying things out) and will be posting more about this as I try things out.

Lots of visitors on Thursday and then on Friday a short sojourn at Bernard and Debbie’s “Not the Royal Wedding” party (Neil was my Chauffeur). Today’s highlights were a lovely few hours with Tony Lloyd reminiscing and talking politics, Karen’s return from Northampton and ‘Dr Who’.

Recycling and Radiotherapy

Having made lots of headway sorting through ‘the stuff’, I’ve got an appeal to send out to you. I’m looking for a good home for a collection of French stamps.

One of my teenage obsessions was with everything French – including stamps.  I built up quite a collection and my father contributed some fairly valuable ones (amongst his many other obsessions after his retirement being buying and selling stamps and coins). There are some complete sets and some very old stamps – all catalogued and labelled.  However, the dealers I consulted some years ago said its not really worth much and any collector would just take out the one or two worth more than a few pounds, which would spoil the sets, which I wouldn’t like to do.  So, if anyone out there knows someone – young or old – who would take an interest and give it a good home, please let me know.   

The LP archiving is nearly complete and I’m hoping the Council Library service will be sending a van out after Easter to collect the file boxes.  Then I’ve just got to decide what to do with holiday photos (???!!!) – any ideas? and every postcard ever sent to me by every friend on any holiday anywhere, ever ……. OMG!!!   Not to mention diaries, theatre programmes, birthday cards… etc … even more OMG!!!  What was I thinking for all those years?   

I spent a lovely afternoon with John Shiers on Tuesday.  We talked politics and shared our cancer experiences and he gave me lots of useful information - more of that in next posting.

Radiotherapy at the Christie on Thursday took 3 hours (mostly waiting in oppressive, hot and airless waiting rooms) – the actual treatment was less than 5 minutes.  The Doctor changed my pain med regime because he said there would be some more pain later (which the Oncologist hadn’t mentioned) and I needed Morphine patches.  But it took a long time for it all to kick in and I was in pain most of the night.  Karen and I were hoping to go to Colwyn Bay on Friday, but given my lack of sleep and Karen’s exhaustion from the heat and the driving, we decided not to go.  Having seen the reported traffic jams on all the coast roads, I think it was the right decision.  Anyway – we both slept really well last night and have had a much better, relaxing day today.

Karen has finished the book typesetting, produced a snazzy cover and e-mailed it off for 2 proof copies to be printed (at an amazing cost of only £20 within 3-4 days), so just proof reading and decisions about publishers to be done now.

Lots to do

Not much change since last week.  Have a date for the radiotherapy appointment (next Thursday) and am having acupuncture twice a week (5 sessions to date).  I seem to have much more energy and less of a problem with pain, so it must be doing some good. 

As the weather was so fantastic again on Saturday, Karen and I went across to Pete & Jenny’s and we had a great barbecue lunch.  Sunday and Monday were quiet and I finished the book (at least the writing)!!!  Karen is now doing the typesetting and trying to squeeze it all into one volume rather than two.  I may have to cut out some of the appendices.  Had visitors on Wednesday (1) and Thursday (3), and following acupuncture on Thursday, K, P & J and I all went out for a fish meal in the city centre - 'Livebait') which was very good.  Lots of family visited yesterday (brother and sister and cousins) which was nice but a bit tiring.

So its now back to the archiving and chucking out years of accumulated rubbish.  To those of you out there who are hoarders like me, can I suggest you start clearing out your ‘stuff’ now, otherwise it’s an overwhelming task.  Years and years of ‘stuff’ that I’ve no idea why I wanted to keep.