AMAZING LEGACY
TELLY agony aunt Denise Robertson helped 200,000 viewers over three decades and is still working wonders two years after her death.
The soothing star who offered advice from the sofa on ITV’s This Morning is the inspiration for a charity 6,000 miles away.
Denise was deeply moved when she met orphan Fred Ssemmenda, 11, and his brother Emmanuelle, seven, on a trip to Uganda with the World Vision charity 14 years ago.
The poor boys had lost their entire family to HIV/AIDS and were literally scraping by from day to day – reduced to eating ants and digging land in return for food.
Denise raised £3,000 to build a home and buy supplies for the boys and transformed their lives.
Fred was so moved by her kindness he started the Denise Foundation in her memory.
And though they never met again, to this day he hails Denise as his “guardian angel” and says: “She was my saviour.”
Fred, now 25 and a graduate of Uganda’s top university, told the Sunday Mirror: “Denise found us in terrible conditions living in a mud and wattle thatched hut where we slept with chicken and goats, eating white ants as our major food source.
“We had to work for our survival at such a tender age until God sent an angel and a redeemer in the form of Denise.”
TV favourite Denise died two years ago yesterday from pancreatic cancer. She was 83.
In her honour Fred hopes to build the Denise Foundation Complex to offer 1,000 children a school, health centre and orphanage.
HUMBLING
Fred – who refers to the star as “Mummy” – said: “Our big dream is to establish the Denise Foundation Complex where every child, no matter status, can enjoy the same rights as any child in the world.”
Denise appeared on This Morning from its first episode and her co-stars included Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan and current presenters Phillip Schofield, Holly Willoughby, Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes.
She described her visit to Uganda’s Rakai District, where between 12 and 30 per cent of the population has HIV/ AIDS, as “humbling”.
When Denise met Fred and Emmanuelle the brothers were cutting chunks from half a tomato – the only food they had to last them for the week.
Fred said Denise’s team gave them clothes and