On Saturday the 30th of June we held a charity night in memory of our son Ryan who passed away on 3rd September 2006 (SADS).

Over 200 people attended the evening at Metrogas Sports Ground in Eltham, South East London – and many more wanted to come.

The evening was a great success, with a Disco, buffet and many great raffle prizes, including 11 holidays to La Manga Club and Marbella, Spain; Tenerife; Portugal; Cyprus; Normandy, France; hotel in Jersey; and a 4-day break in a beautiful 5-star hotel in the Lake District.

We also had signed football shirts from England, Chelsea, Manchester United and Scott Parker, who played for Newcastle.

Teddy Sheringham at West Ham also sent us signed football shirts, and we had a signed photo from Steven Gerrard at Liverpool and 6 signed footballs from Charlton, Millwall, Manchester United and West Ham.

Crystal Palace sent us Directors’ Box tickets for one of their home games this season.

Along with these fantastic prizes we had 60 others. Superdrug supplied us with a big Dove Hamper, and enough make up and facial scrubs to put together 50 goody bags which we sold.

Waitrose gave us vouchers, as did Sainsbury’s – and we had beauty vouchers and haircut vouchers.

There were theatre tickets; bottles of whiskey and Champagne signed by Tony Blair; signed Richard Littlejohn book; Cheese Hampers; beautiful links bracelet; two children’s bikes; and the Daily Mail supplied us with at least 25 other items including Royal Worcester coffee sets, hair dryers and many other exciting things.

CRY Representative Rob Thorne gave a brief talk about CRY, making people aware and talking about the great work CRY does.

He also talked about the CRY screening program, and the screening event which is being held at the same Sports Hall on August 19th in memory of Adam Donnelly, by Julie and Jed Donnelly (Adam’s parents). It was wonderful to meet them and we were grateful for their support.

Lots of people who attended have shown so much interest which really made Rob’s talk so worthwhile.

We were so proud that so many of our family and Ryan’s friends came to our Charity Night in Ryan’s memory. We are happy to donate all the proceeds we made on that evening to CRY – the amount being £9200.

We have already been asked about next year’s event, which we will be more than happy to arrange and continue to support CRY, who are such a worthy cause.

Barbara and John Darby