Battling ‘bag ladies’ to give back
TWO friends known as ‘The Bag Ladies’ are to help to raise money for charity after both being diagnosed with cancer.
Gail Bradbury of Norton Green and Janet Plimley of Cheddleton have been friends for more than 20 years and business partners for about 15 years.
They stumbled across a business venture through their love of making new from old, vintage fabrics and sewing and were based in The Trestle Market in Leek for a few years.
Gail said: “We loved the town, the people, and the location.”
However in 2014 one half of The Bag Ladies, Gail, was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, quite late in its development and underwent two and a half years of treatment.
The type diagnosed, Follicular, is incurable but treatable and she is now able to carry on with life more or less normally with three monthly check ups and a ‘wicked sense of humour.’
Then, the unthinkable happened, earlier this year the other half of the team, Janet, was diagnosed with breast cancer, a type only diagnosed by having a mammogram.
Janet is now coming to the end of her treatment and can now start to look forward to a full recovery and getting her life back to normal with the aid of ‘the odd gin.’
Gail said: “Sewing, designing and creating has saved us both when we have been at our lowest and we owe it a lot, so, I was delighted, when out shopping to find some Breast Cancer design fabric, not a huge amount, but enough to be viable.
“We had supported Bloodwise, a Cancer Research charity for blood cancers, since the first diagnosis and now it was time to support Breast Cancer.
“Without Janet knowing what I was up to I managed to make six bags out of the fabric and put an appeal out for donations for items to put in each bag, and our friends in Leek, independent shops, traders on Totally Local Sunday Market and personal friends came forward with loads of goodies to go in our bags.
“Five of the bags are being auctioned on our Face Book page towards the end of November with 100 per cent of the money raised going to breast cancer through a local heroine Catherine Bennett.
“The sixth bag will be going to the Cancer Unit at the Royal Stoke University Hospital for their Christmas raffle on behalf of both of us.”