Why I’m so proud to support this haven of hope
Gary Lineker backs the Mail’s Christmas appeal
WHEN Gary Lineker turned up to open a new playroom at the Kent hospice Demelza House, there was a subdued atmosphere in the normally bustling living areas.
‘They’d lost two children that day,’ he recalls. ‘It was hard to get away from that. The other kids were delighted to be getting a new facility, but there was a note of sobriety about the whole event.
‘It brought it home to me what an amazing job these people actually do, in circumstances most of us would consider impossible.’
Like most celebrities Lineker, a former England captain turned sports TV presenter, gets his fair share of requests from charities.
But when he was asked to become involved with Demelza House — which the Mail has chosen to be the beneficiary of this year’s Christmas Appeal — he didn’t hesitate to say yes. And there was a deeply personal reason why the father of four wanted to lend his support to the charity.
Thirteen years ago, Lineker himself discovered just how difficult it can be for a family to cope alone in the face of a child’s critical illness.
His eldest son, George, was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was just a baby.
Lineker and his wife Michelle spent much of George’s early life at his bedside in Great Ormond Street Hospital For Children, in London, where the tiny George underwent chemotherapy.
Although the treatment appeared to be successful immediately, George did not get the all- clear until he was five years old.
Memories of those painful days are clearly never far from Lineker’s mind.
‘ When I come to a place like Demelza and see families who are so anxious, it does all come flooding back,’ he explains.
‘No family who has ever had to sit by a child’s bedside, racked with worry, will ever forget how awful it feels.
‘But there was a big difference with us. When George was ill we always had hope that he would get better, and we clung to that hope. I think being positive was the only way we could have got through it.
‘ The families here, though, have had to face the worst. Most have had to accept that their children will never get better. Some are right at the end.’
He shudders. ‘The strength of character you see in a place like this really is humbling.
‘ I honestly don’t know how some families do it — but places like this really do seem to help them cope with the impossible.’
BUT WHEN he does visit Demelza House — where he spends time talking to the parents, or kicking a football about with the youngsters — Lineker does not talk about his own family, save to say that he understands, to a point, what they are going through.
‘ It’s very different,’ he explains. ‘ I never make a big deal about what happened to us, but most people know that we’ve had experience with a very ill child, and they seem to appreciate that.
But I wouldn’t say for one minute that I understand what they are going through because I don’t. You can’t unless you have to go down that route.’
With each visit, however, he returns home — to his own four boisterous sons — reminded of his own good fortune.
Perhaps this is why Lineker has long immersed himself in the fund-raising arena.
As well as supporting Demelza House, he is a tireless campaigner for Great Ormond Street. He also supports leukaemia charities, and was a high-profile campaigner for Donor Cards. ‘Part of me would like to forget about what we went through, but I just can’t do that, and putting a little back is perhaps our way of saying thank you, and perhaps helping other people in the process,’ he says.
‘ It might not apply in Demelza, but the best thing we can do for families sometimes is just to meet them and say, yes, it is OK to hope. Things can work out.’
George was just six weeks old when Michelle noticed a tiny spot on her first- born child’s forehead.
Three weeks later he was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital where he spent the next seven months being given aggressive doses of chemotherapy which racked his tiny body with pain. Now 13 and a typical teenager, he is mortified by the attention he receives as a result of his childhood illness.
‘He knows why his mum and I want to get involved in things like this, but he finds all the attention embarrassing.
‘ When he reads something about himself in the papers, he wonders why they have to write it, because it was so long ago.
‘ I can understand that. George was only a baby — he doesn’t remember being ill, and we’ve never made a big deal of it to him.
‘But not a day goes by where we don’t think about how lucky we were. Not everyone is, though, and that is why places like Demelza exist.
‘ We all like to think we will never need the help that they provide, but the truth is that none of us can ever be sure of that.
‘ That’s why I’m so glad the Mail is supporting their cause this Christmas.’