My life has been touched by breast cancer twice. Heartbreakingly, I watched as my dear sister Mary died from the disease, and then my very brave and ballsy sister Helen was diagnosed with grade 3 and fought her own battle - 7 years down the line, and she's still winning. Bravo, our kid - you're a bloody star.
A few years back, I decided to try to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, as they launched their 40 mile overnight fundraising walk round the sights and streets of London. Roping in my nearest and dearest ladyfriends, we were given a target of £6000. Apart from begging literally everyone we knew for their hard-earned, we also ran a charity stall in the centre of Crouch End (at this point I coined the phrase "Tat For Tits", but we weren't sure if Crouch End was ready for my wit). We had items donated from local people, Harvey Nichols gave us pink champagne to raffle, so we set up by Barclays bank one fine Saturday and peddled our wares. Really good fun and we raised £400 that day. The four of us ended up raising over £7000 by the time the walk came around - we even managed the walk without a blister or bit of chafing (I'll never forget the sight of the very large lady walker dressed in a bright pink tutu, whose thighs had rubbed together so badly at the top that she ended up walking like Yosemite Sam...)
So I was more than happy to oblige when the lovely Massimo and Greg of The Haberdashery in Crouch End called me to ask if I'd run the charity stall at their next bar boot sale in aid of Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was a top night - the boys had the usual array of sellers bringing along their vintage bits and bobs/craft/housey stuff. My stall was filled with donations from local businesses and customers, and the boys had donated a cakestand filled with pink cupcakes to sell. My own donation was candy pink polka dot bunting (of course):
None More Black Meets None More Pink
The fellas had lots of lovely snacks to sell, and they were knocking up some unfeasibly good cocktails - I managed to neck the most delicious strawberry caipiriha. And the entertainment was top stuff too - The Marjorie Belles sang some sweet swing numbers perfectly fitting the evening - space was so limited, they performed perched on top of bistro chairs:
"From The Top, Ladies"
Toot Toot Tootsies
Find out more about them here: http://www.themarjoriebelles.com/
It was a huge success - Massimo tells me the stall raised over £150 on the night, and that a couple of thousand pounds were raised throughout Crouch End (The Haberdashery also held a masked tea party as part of the week-long events). All for a truly good cause, I had a ball and I think the chaps did too:
The Cream Of Café Society
