Family Affairs

The prestigious Stirling Prize for architecture 2009 has indeed gone to Maggie’s Centre. The building I wrote about recently – the one Lord Richard Rogers designed that is situated in the grounds of The Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith. The building is truly amazing – a calm and tranquil space with lush green foliage both inside and out – a real haven:-

This is very good news for the charity and I am going to put the pictures I took a while ago back up just so that you can see what the centre looks like.

I am on the committee for a fashion show a girlfriend of mine is putting on in support of “Maggie’s” in February next year so have a vested interest.

Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres is a charity that provides support, free of charge, for people who have been diagnosed with any type of cancer. The support is also for their families, their friends and their carers. Given that my father is currently being treated for bowel cancer and a good friend is fighting breast cancer, the opportunity to be part of something that is truly making a difference is even more meaningful. Each individual person with cancer has to find their own way through the difficult path of their illness, but they all need information and reliable guidance.

Maggie Keswick Jencks founded the charity with her husband after being diagnosed with breast cancer when she was forty-seven. It was through her experience of living with cancer that she began to recognise that taking an active role in her own treatment, moving from passive victim to active participant was the single most important step in dealing with her illness. She held a profound belief that architecture and the environment could deeply affect how you feel. She also became aware that having been diagnosed, there was no one place or person to turn to to get the answers she felt she needed.

The kitchen is always the heart of the centre, giving it a very homely feel with lots of people sitting around a large table drinking tea and eating cakes and chatting and laughing:-

Once there the support you can receive ranges from one-to-one psychological support, weekly support groups, nutrition courses, benefits and welfare support, social and online support and relaxation and stress management.

All Maggie’s Centres in the UK are built adjacent to major cancer treatment hospitals but operate independently of the NHS. Their vision is to open centres next to every NHS Cancer hospital around the country: 5 are in progress in Oxford (this one is being built like a treehouse with wood made by local boatbuilders), Newcastle, South West Wales, Cheltenham and Nottingham. Internationally plans are in place for further centres in Hong Kong, Barcelona and Denmark.

My friend will show her 2010 Spring/Summer Collection and is aiming to raise in excess of £100,000!!

What a difference that will make.