Save the planet, don’t bin sequin frocks says Alesha
Environmental message...Alesha, 41
LITTLE Jacob Scrimshaw can give his younger brother Sebastian a proper cuddle for the first time after being fitted with a fully functioning prosthetic arm.
The five-year-old can now hug his three-year-old sibling with a new bionic green “Hulk” arm made by a British inventor.
His mother Gemma Turner was having her 20-month scan when medics broke the news to her and dad Chris Scrimshaw that part of their baby’s left arm was missing.
Jacob had appeared to be coping in early childhood.
But when he came home from school crying about his difficulties, mum-of-three Gemma, 36, vowed to get him a prosthetic arm.
However, he needed one with an elbow joint which was not available on the NHS.
Police officer Gemma said: “We started raising money in February.
“I knew what we wanted would cost an awful lot of money.
“We thought we would have to go to America.”
Presents
Once the family, from Calderdale, West Yorks, had raised £16,000 by September, they began searching online for someone who could help.
They found Ben Ryan, of Menai Bridge, Anglesey, north Wales, a psychology teacher who had become an engineer after his own child lost an arm in birth.
The inventor created a prosthetic using 3D printing while his son Sol was just five weeks old.
Mr Ryan has his own company and Jacob was one of his first clients.
He said when Jacob’s family were told they had to wait for a prosthetic “they refused to give in and kept looking for answers – I was the same – they kept going and luckily they found me”.
Jacob uses his nerves to squeeze a water-filled chamber mounted to the upper arm which builds pressure and lets the hand open and close. He can now play with his brother and push his six-month-old sister Nell in her pushchair.
Gemma said she was looking forward to seeing him open his presents with two hands this Christmas and said it had “melted her heart” to see Jacob holding hands with his brother and dad at the same time.
ALESHA Dixon is among stars urging Christmas partygoers to help save the planet by donating old sequinned frocks to charity stores...and also by buying them second-hand.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge said she was trying to address the “climate emergency” as almost two million sequinned items of clothing and accessories are binned after the party season each year, according to Oxfam.
They will either end up in landfill for hundreds of years or get swept into the ocean, where the discs are likely to get eaten by fish who mistake the non-biodegradable plastic for food. “With the current climate emergency, we all need to do our part in looking after our planet and shopping sustainably is something we all can do,” Alesha, 41, said.
She has donated a glitzy Rixo red dress worth £295 to Oxfam and the garment, designed by Laura Jackson, will go on sale online today.
Louise Redknapp, 45, has donated a shimmering shirt which she wore this summer when she performed her new single Lead Me On on TV.
“It’s shocking that so many sequinned items will end up in landfill. I’m donating my sequinned shirt to Oxfam because I’d like someone else to enjoy wearing it as much as I have,” Louise said. She admitted the shirt had been in her wardrobe for 18 years.
More than 30 million sequinned items are usually sold over the festive period at a cost of £415million.
Each garment will be worn just five times on average and one in 20 outfits will be dumped in the bin.
Former Saturdays singer Una Healy, 38, and actresses Celia Imrie, 67, and Alison Steadman, 73, have also joined the charity’s donation drive.
The glitzy Rixo red dress donated by Alesha