The writings of Max Robinson: Loving our NHS

ONE WEEK TO GO:

One week today and it will be our Garden Party – are you coming ? CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS

I am hoping friends from as wide an area of our community as possible will be able to drop by. I have deliberately widely set timings from 10am to 4pm so we can have a constant flow of friends and not be overcrowded. THAT SAID PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AND INVITE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE TO JOIN US. I have a big garden

9 Humber Way Bletchley MK3 7PH

When you arrive you will be met by a pathway of SMILES leading you through the front garden, down the side of my home and into the garden at the rear. When you arrive you will

be met with a stack of gifts made by Jollyes staff and customers for PETS IN NEED. Please pick up a tin and take it through to where you will be met by a box of SMILE stickers, take one and put it on the tin. Wrap the tin in your love than add it to the TOWER OF TINS for Milton Keynes Foodbank. In these terrible times of austerity let’s give our amazing Foodbank LOVE and support as the even more now vital work they do is undertaken.

Time goes by very quickly when you are old ! It is now three weeks since I became ill. I ended up being sent to A & E where I was given prompt, loving care then discharged to a clinic. There the loving care of our NHS continued. I am now almost better, the garden party for me will be a personal celebration and THANK YOU to our NHS.

I deliberately set a modest target of £200 so I could honour any shortfall myself. ALL costs for running the party are coming from my own pocket and NOT taken out of donations. The JustGiving site right now has received £95 and I have £40 in cash lovely people have given to me to start off the collection buckets.

There will be 50 copies of my books which visitors are free to take in exchange for a donation thrown into one of the buckets. We are seeking to:

SUPPORT children who are sick in hospital.

SEND LOVE to their families.

THANK our NHS staff who are caring for them.

Within our SMILE programme it is so important to send love to families who are going through

such a hard and emotional time with their child is sick in hospital. We are seeing in the media reports of the passing of young Archie. The media has failed to wrap love into its reports. I remember so well, we are talking late 1980’s, how Beck made friends with the little girl in the bed adjacent to hers in Guys Hospital. I took a photograph of hem both. That little girl died and her family was devastated beyond words I can use to describe their situation. Beck took the photograph and over the little girl she wrote died. Over her own image she wrote liver.

At the garden party you will be able to sign SMILE cards of love for families who have a child sick in hospital. As well as University Hospital Milton Keynes cards will be sent to the eleven hospitals around the world we support with our project.

You can also sign cards wishing patients in a number of Milton Keynes and Stoke Manderville

wards a speedy recovery. Each month we send cards to patients in the Chiltern Kidney Unit. These lovely people are unable to come to the party as they are all going out on a coach trip for the day. I have already sent them SMILE cards wishing them a super trip. You can sign cards THANKING our NHS staff in numerous locations. NHS staff who every minute of every day go the extra mile.

NHS = National Happy Smile.

I have taken a series of stories written over the years, including a couple I wrote while sitting at Beck’s childhood bedside in Guys Hospital London, and published them in a book STORIES FOR YOUR CHILDREN. At the party I want you to sign messages of love in a book, one each for the eleven locations around the world we support: CALGARY – Canada DUBLIN – Ireland MUMBAI – India NASHVILLE – USA AUCKLAND – New Zealand LOS ANGELES – USA NEW YORK – USA BIRMINGHAM – England CANBERRA – Australia JOHANNESESBURG – South Africa CARDIFF - Wales

I am going to keep you very busy so there will be lots of refreshments to help you SMILE.

I also want to share with you some ideas for future support, support for our NHS and for our

Foodbank. I want to gauge how much support there is before launching anything.

So….. Sunday 14^th August 10am to 4pm 9 Humber Way Bletchley MK3 7PH drop by any time, tell you friends to come by. EVERYONE bring your love and SMILE.

A SMILE is the vaccination for sadness. Come and help with our vaccination programme.

David