Look at the stars, look how they shine for you!

A few bits and pieces of news  from a few weekends ago: some memories, some nice things that happened and some lovely ways of remembering Huw and fund raising for his trust.

A friend (Paula Moss) sent me this photo – she saw the writing when she was cycling in Italy at the same time as Gabz’s bike event recently – and she thought of Huw and the cycling at Farnley Tyas. 

On the Friday it was great for me and Carys to see Big Ry, Hayley and Tracy and share some memories about Huw and have a laugh.  Then on the Saturday morning Steve Taylor and Andy Ackroyd were doing a ‘guess the time’ at the Coop for the Mallorca Marathon they are running soon.  They spoke of people’s generosity and where children or teenagers were paying to have a go and therefore must be forgoing an ice cream or a can of pop – that’s so kind and generous.

I cycled up to watch Carys play hockey at Storthes Hall on the Saturday afternoon; as I went up the hill out of Brockholes I remembered the day in June 2010 when Huw struggled up that hill on his bike to get to the Honley Show at Farnley Tyas.  And it was lovely to see some of the hockey players wearing Huw’s wrist bands – they played great too.  On the way back I stopped at the top of Sands and looked down at Huw’s bench – Big George and some of the others were there and waved 🙂  I went back at about 6.45 when it was quiet and getting dark to water Huw’s tubs and it was great to have help from Chris Traynor and Oliver Tucker getting water from the stream – thanks lads!

It was good to watch Wales beat Fiji in the rugby on the Sunday morning and I was thinking of how Huw would be loving the ‘business end’ of the World Cup and Wales doing well.  It reminded me of the day Huw met the Wales Rugby team in Cardiff in February 2010.

On the Sunday afternoon I went to a Civic Service at Hepworth Church – the Chairman of Holme Valley Parish Council (Tom Dixon) has kindly made Huw’s Trust a charity that he’s going to support this year.  Thank you for the collection in Church that Tom organised and for the refreshments and friendship afterwards.

I met Jeremy Hoyle on the Sunday night to talk about an evening he is kindly planning – with food, entertainment and a famous speaker next spring which sounds like it’ll be an excellent night out – and to remember Huw and raise funds for the Trust.  Jeremy has been involved in Honley Junior football over the years and told me how he wanted to support Huw’s trust and how he and his family had been moved by what happend to Huw.  He also told me how the Honley team talks before they played Hepworth often included something about ‘how are we going to get past Huw Thatcher today?’

Finally, as well as sending the photo above – Paula also sent me this You Tube link to a concert she went to at an Italian chapel – check out what’s on the right wrist of the guy singing in the middle.  The lyrics include this passage:

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young

Forever young, forever young

May you stay forever young