_{“Anthony Nolan is the the charity that makes lifesaving connections between patients in need and incredible strangers ready to donate their stem cells.”}

This was a such a wonderful, uplifting service despite the desperate urgency to so much of the work this charity does to save lives. We cried, we laughed we sang.

The service was in St Pancras Church in Euston Road, and the choir leading us through the evening was the B Positive Choir, whose singers, all connected with sickle cell disease, sing to raise awareness of the disease and the importance of blood donation. Their song, Rise Up, was so energising.

And it was not the only great pleasure of the evening. The service was rich with performers, all brilliantly entertaining, but most moving of all was the account of everything Fin and his family had had to go through. His mother described the race to find the donors and cures they needed to help the suddenly, desperately ill four-year old survive. It sounded such an exhausting, stressful time but there at the end of all those years was Fin, taking his mother’s place at the podium to read a story about snowmen, his voice as strong as a young oak … and all of us speechless with emotion and applause.

We left with our hearts singing.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023