Registered Charity No: 1083586 www.bosom-pals.org.uk The prinng of “Tile Tale” was kindly sponsored by Anna Fildes 1 BEDFORD BRANCH CONTENTS Page 1—Chairman’s Chat; Page 2—What’s been going on? Page 3 Look Good—Feel Better; 20th Celebration; Autumn Trip to the Factory Shop Page 4 Lynne’s profile; Brenda’s Orange Cake Recipe; Page 5—We’re on the move; Page 6 Members News Page 7—Alan Wiggins; Page 8—Interesting Facts Page 9—Useful Information Page 10—Speaker Programme W W elcome elcome to another issue of “Tittle Tattle” and thank you for your interest and support of our Group. We are now half way through the year and have enjoyed a number of social events that I hope you will like reading about. Our AGM was held in April and I am delighted that all the existing Committee agreed to stand for another year, and that we have been joined by Lynne Summerfield who joined Bosom Pals last year, but has a very long history with the Group. Read Lynn’s story on page 4. 2014 is proving to be a year of change for the Group. Following consultation with our members we are moving our meeting place from the Primrose Unit, to the Transfiguration Church Hall in Bedford Road Kempston. Our first meeting in the new venue is the next meeting August 13th. See page 5 for more details. Our 20th Celebration Party is fast approaching, Saturday 13 September 2014, Tickets are still available and we will be selling them at our August meeting, so if you haven’t got yours yet they are still available, please contact Pauline Hooper. Please come along and help make the event a night to remember. Tickets are only £5 each but are limited to 2 tickets per member. At least 50% of the ticket cost is subsidised by Bosom Pals so it is excellent value for money and an opportunity to catch up with old friends and party the night away. We hope to see you there. Read more on page 3. We are delighted that our website is now up and running again. We are still getting to grips with the new site and are trying to keep it up to date, no doubt this will improve with time, Visit www.bosom-pals.org.uk to keep abreast of what’s going on. Hope to see you at one of our meetings or social events. Jean Davies—Chairperson
The printing of “Tittle Tattle” was kindly sponsored by Anna Fildes
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W e started the year off in true style, 26 members attended the cream tea
at the Swan Hotel on the embankment. It was another wet and windy
day but we had a wonderful afternoon and ended up
feeling full to the brim and a little warmer inside as
the tea included a glass of prosecco.
7th April saw us returning to Hazel Kaye Beauty Salon for
another pamper evening, 24 members enjoyed an evening
of pampering as well as the chance to catch up for a long
chat over a cup of tea and some nibbles. Once again the
therapists made us feel welcome and very special, our
thanks to them for making it a night to remember. Photo
shows Carol’s delight with her manicure.
April was a busy month, we arranged a visit to Peacocks Auction Rooms inviting
husbands and friends. Peacocks was founded in 1901 and has been holding weekly
auctions in and around Bedford for over a Century. It was a fun and interesting
evening and at the end of the evening we took part in a small quiz, trying to value
certain items. Most of us were miles out, but Lynn Summerfield was the overall
winner, well done Lynne. The evening was rounded off with a light supper and a
glass of wine.
Thanks to everyone who came along and supported the Bosom Pals Quiz on 28 May at the White Horse pub in Newnham Avenue. It was a great evening with lots of laughter and singing. Food was excellent value for money and Nigel was a first class quiz master, Sue and her staff made us feel really welcome, and we made
£322.13p clear profit for Bosom Pals. Our regular quizzers comments were “the best BP quiz ever”. Catherine Long’s team “The scrambled Eggheads” came first, photo of Catherine at the Pamper Evening.
It really amazes me what some of our members have done during their life and what some of them do
now as a hobby and in their spare time. In March Jenny Carroll told us about her earlier life as a dancer
with the Opera Ballet at Sadlers Wells Theatre and the many well known celebrities that she has worked
with. In June Viv Addy and her husband came to tell us all about the “Civil War Re-enactment” group
they are involved in. It was really interesting and showed us another side of Viv.
The printing of “Tittle Tattle” was kindly sponsored by Anna Fildes
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MEMBERS NEWS
It is with great sadness that we said goodbye to Alan Wiggins who passed away on 2nd June. ,
Alan was the husband of Elizabeth, one of our breast care nurses who retired about 4 years, he
was a great supporter of Bosom Pals, attended almost all of our social events, and was often
heard to say that “Bosom Pals know how to party”. He will be sadly missed and remembered
fondly. Elizabeth kindly agreed to share her thoughts and memories of Alan with us.
We met in 1969 when I was doing my nurse training at Charing Cross Hospital (local groups short of girls for parties would often phone the nurses home advising anyone of forthcoming ones). I still have the dog-eared photograph of me in my nurses uniform which he carried around all the time in his wallet. We married in December 1971 as soon as I had qualified – I even got the final result of my midwifery training course on our wedding day, which was cutting it a bit fine –my father had said he wanted me to finish my training before we got married. We had some amazing times together, travelling for our holidays and sharing our joint hobby of researching our family history. A few years ago both Alan and I wrote a booklet of our memories, to give to our children, so they knew we had a life before they were born – I am so pleased that we did that now. He will live on in our children and our nine grandchildren – if anyone ever mentioned grandchildren, he always made sure they knew he had nine of them! He was a very proud Grandad.
His other love of his life was the Air Training Corps – he had been a member since he was 13 years old and at the time of his death he was a Squadron Leader in
charge of media, covering an area from the Humber to London and from Birmingham to the Norfolk coast. He was working right to the end, in his real job of railway signalling – but towards the last days he worked from home and emailed the reports into the office. Our son Christopher always said that Dad would never retire – he was right! His other hobbies included gardening, walking, photography, camping and travel – the latter being essential as our eldest daughter, Victoria, lives in Australia . Our second daughter, Caroline, is a breast feeding adviser in Hull – the city I grew up in! (People do look at me quizzically if they catch sight of me knitting breasts for her training sessions with new mums!)
He was particularly proud that we were both Gamesmakers at the 2012 London Olympics. A chance in a lifetime.
He was too young to die – but he packed so much into his 66 years and we all have such lovely memories of our time together. He remained positive about his illness to the very end, believing he could survive, but it was not to be. He totally supported Bedford Hospital and his oncology team –and would never hear a word against the NHS.
RIP Alan
The total amount raised in Alan’s name for Cancer Research UK is £2375.09. This includes money from the funeral collection, and memory giving and also all the sponsored events done by Alan and Elizabeth’s children and their friends. They did all sorts of things including half marathons and “tough mudder”, if you want to know more, or feel like trying it yourself,
visit this website: https://toughmudder.co.uk/.
I am sure we all hope and pray that research will find cures for this terrible group of illnesses and others will benefit from losing Alan.
