Help provide vital respite for carers

DID your readers know that, of the estimated 6.8 million carers in the UK, over three quarters of a million are in the North West, with over 280,000 in Greater Manchester and over 165,000 in Merseyside?

Every day another 6,000 people take on a caring responsibility.

Unpaid carers face huge challenges providing care for disabled or older loved ones. For instance, according to our own research, a third of carers have never had any significant time off since they started caring. Would you like to do something about that?

I work for a fantastic charity called Revitalise. We run the Sandpipers respite holiday centre in Southport, providing muchneeded respite holidays for disabled people and carers from across the region, and we’re appealing to the nation on BBC Radio 4 to ask for more support for the nation’s unsung army of carers.

Our appeal will be presented by our good friend, the writer and comedian Arthur Smith, who is a vice-president of Revitalise. Arthur talks about his own experience as a carer for his mother Hazel.

Arthur has close ties with Sandpipers. He has visited the centre a number of times and in 2014 he organised and compered a comedy fundraiser for the centre at The Atkinson in Southport.

Arthur goes on tell the story of Mavis and Colin, who recently benefitted from a respite break with Revitalise, which helped sustain their relationship.

Mavis and Colin have been married for 56 years. When Mavis developed MS in her 20s, Colin gave up work to care for her, but was himself diagnosed with dementia in 2002 and Mavis is now his carer.

We want to help thousands more couples just like Mavis and Colin but to do so we need your help, so please tune in and support this very worthy cause. The appeal will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, August 13 at 7.55am and 9.26pm, then repeated on Thursday 17 August at 3.27pm.

To find out more about our appeal, visit our website: www. revitalise.org.uk Please help.