A Photo Collage to Mark The Third Anniversary of Mum's Death to Bowel Cancer

There is no getting away from the fact that the anniversary of losing someone close can be a particularly sad and tough time, and this week marked the third anniversary of Mum’s death to bowel cancer with those feelings coming to the surface, but also alongside some incredibly happy memories of a wonderful mum.

To mark the occasion this year, I wanted to do something positive, so I have produced a photo collage comprising of some of the wonderful photos that I have received over the last few years from people who have so generously bought books, t-shirts, bears and other bits and pieces from me to help raise funds. The collage consists of bowel cancer patients, relations of cancer patients, my oldest friends, my new friends, and people who have come across my work and made contact with me. There are quite a few stories within the collage that I am sure I will come back to in the weeks ahead.

For all the sadness over the loss of Mum the biggest positive for me has been the amazing support I have had for my fundraising and raising awareness about bowel cancer. I have made so many new friends, many of whom share a connection to this awful disease. It has had such a positive effect on me, and I can never thank everyone who has bought something or sponsored me over the last seven years.

I think my decision to start fundraising back in 2012 was very much a sliding doors type moment. Mum’s operation to remove the tumour from her bowel was a success, and something inside me wanted to do something positive, but I could so easily have just remained thankful for Mum recovering and not done anything. I still can’t really explain it, but it’s been absolutely incredible and so very rewarding. Not that I need any reminding, but the collage shows just how amazing the support has been. The fundraising figure currently stands at around £10,000 so thank you so very much to each and every one of you!

The beauty of the collage is that it can keep on expanding, so if anyone has a photo of themselves with one of my fundraising items and would it to be added then please send it to me and I’ll happy add it to the collage. I’ve done my very best to include everyone, but if you are missing then please let me know.

Some of the people in the collage are still undergoing treatment for bowel cancer. Their continued support for everything I do is fan-bloody-tastic, and I wanted to say an extra special thank you to all of them. They are a massive inspiration to me and are never far from my thoughts.
Of course the fundraising continues. My latest book, The Record, was published in June, and has so far raised over £600 for Bowel Cancer UK.

For those interested in buying a copy of The Record please click here.

 

 

How To Buy The Record

My new bowel cancer fundraising book The Record is out now.  I have been fundraising since 2012, after my mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had the operation to remove the tumour. She lived with stage 4 bowel cancer for four and half years, but sadly died on August 29th, 2016. The Record is dedicated to her memory. The book features chapters of my meetings with famous people from the worlds of music, sport and television, as well as some truly amazing and inspirational people from the bowel cancer community.

Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK. 16,000 lives are lost each year. However, if detected early at stage 1 it can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases. This figure falls dramatically to just 7% when diagnosis occurs at the late stage 4. Early diagnosis is therefore key and raising awareness about bowel cancer is vital.

There are a number of ways that you can buy The Record, which is available in three different formats.

Paperback Edition

• rivers2cross.com This is the website I have set up. The book costs £12.99 including free P&P in the UK. £10 postage charge for overseas customers. 
• Amazon The book costs £14.49 including P&P. 

Ebook Edition

• Amazon The digital edition for the kindle is only available for £3.99 on Amazon at the moment. There are free kindle apps that can run on all your devices.

Hardback Edition

• rivers2cross.com This is the website I have set up. The book costs £32.99 including free P&P in the UK. £10 postage charge for overseas customers.
• Amazon The book costs £39.99 including P&P.

Worldwide (outside the UK)

• Amazon Search "The Record Tim Darvell" and you'll come across the book.
• Wordery Offers free shipping to anywhere in the world, so is a brilliant way for buyers living outside the UK to buy the book. As above search for  "The Record Tim Darvell".

The Record is also available to order from all good online book retailers.

I am also quite happy to sell physical copies of the hardback and paperback editions directly bypassing the websites. Please contact me on email me at timdarv@googlemail.com and we can arrange it on there.

I would like to thank everyone for the encouragement and support given so far, and every single purchase makes a difference. Please support me on this venture. It took over two and a half years to put this book together, and all proceeds from sales are donated to Bowel Cancer UK. Over £600 has been raised so far.

Frank Turner in The Record

Frank Turner - Southampton Guildhall, May 2018

I was fortunate to get a couple of opportunities to photograph Frank Turner for The Record, my new bowel cancer fundraising book. I photographed him from the photo pit at the Southampton Guildhall in May 2018, and before that I got to meet and chat with Frank before his gig at the Reading Hexagon in November 2016, which all made for a great chapter in the book.

Frank wearing the bowel cancer tie

As you can see in the above photo Frank was great fun and happy to do a photo wearing the bowel cancer tie to help raise awareness about this awful illness. The reason why Frank agreed to meet me was after I’d contacted him after my mum died of bowel cancer in August 2016. The Record has been written in her memory, and all proceeds raised from sales of the book are donated to Bowel Cancer UK, with over £600 raised so far. Bowel cancer is the second highest cancer killer in the UK with 16,000 deaths each year. However, if detected at the early stage 1 over 90% of cases can be successfully treated. There is a dramatic drop in survival rates with later diagnosis. At stage 4 only 7% of patients currently live for five years or more. Only 15% of patients are currently diagnosed at stage 1. Raising awareness about bowel cancer plays an important part in trying to increase early detection rates.

Going back to the Reading gig, I met Frank in one of the rooms back stage. I was told that I would have five minutes with him, so I knew I had to be ready with my camera and that every second would count with him. There was a itinerary sheet on the wall which showed just how busy a day he had. And I saw my name on it, which was a nice touch knowing that I was a very small part in his day.

Frank couldn’t have been nicer. I made sure I got the name of his first record, which has an interesting story behind it. He was extremely nice and was happy to chat and do the photos. We crammed in quite a bit into those five minutes. When he found out that I didn’t have a ticket for the sold out show he put me on the guest which was a very kind and generous gesture.

The gig was outstanding. This was my first experience of seeing him live. I knew it was going to be good, but seriously it would not be an understatement to say that this was one of the best gigs that I have been to. Quite brilliant! Over the last three years I’ve been to a couple more of his concerts, which also did not disappointed.

The photo pit experience in Southampton was show number 2163 for Frank. I was very kindly given a photo pass, and spent the first three songs snapping away. and this enabled me to complete the photography for the chapter in The Record.

I can’t thank Frank enough for his support and giving me such a unique opportunity to put such a great chapter together on him. The Record is available as an eBook, paperback and hardback. Please click here to see all the ways to get hold of a copy of the book.

The Record

My mum, Jennifer Darvell, was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in 2012, and had a successful operation to remove a section of her bowel. However, the cancer had spread to her lungs as a secondary cancer, now becoming stage 4. Over the next four years Mum had four further operations on her lungs to remove cancerous nodules. Finally, the cancer also spread to her brain and she had CyberKnife treatment on the two lesions. Sadly one of lesions didn't respond and her health deteriorated. She peacefully passed away in August 2016 at the St, Marks Nursing Home in Maidenhead.

During those four years I published two fundraising books, Beating Bowel Cancer & Lives & Times to raise funds for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity, which has now come under the umbrella of Bowel Cancer UK. All my books, art, t-shirts and teddy bears are available on my www.rivers2cross.com website. Since 2012 the total fundraising has raised around £10000.

I'd been thinking about doing a third book for some time while Mum was in hospital during her final months, and decided it would be fitting to do a book dedicated to her memory to raise more funds for Bowel Cancer UK. Another important aspect of what these books do is helping to raise awareness about bowel cancer. This cannot be underestimated. Bowel cancer is the 2nd biggest cancer killer in the UK, and yet can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases if detected early. Too many are lost to this disease...

The new book is called The Record, and the idea behind it was for me to go and meet and photograph people and write up about the experience in anecdotal form. This is the way I did Lives & Times. The difference this time is that there is a constant theme running through it, as I will asked everyone I met to tell me about the first record they bought. The book features many famous people from sport, music, television, as well as many amazing people from the bowel cancer community.

Click here to see how you can buy the book.

Steve 'Smiley' Barnard, The Man Behind Smiley's Friends In The Afterglow, Features In Bowel Cancer Charity Book

This week I received this cracking CD in the post. Smiley's Friend In The Afterglow is the 5th album from drummer, and music producer Steve 'Smiley' Barnard. Among the many artists he has banged the drums for include Robbie Williams, Joe Strummer, The Mock Turtles, and From The Jam. He currently is drumming for Archive and The Alarm, and it is through my love of The Alarm that I have got know more about him.

The original plan was to do the book stuff with him at the 2017 Gathering in Llandudno, but we kept missing each other, so in the end I met Smiley at his recording studio in Fleet a few months later. At the time he was in the early stages of recording his album, which he was very excited about, as well being kept very busy with recording and touring commitments with The Alarm and Archive. We chatted for over an hour, and he couldn't have been nicer, and was a true gent. As you can see he was also a great sport donning the bowel cancer tie. The new charity book is still some way from completion, but with chapters like this one, I can assure you that it will be worth the wait.

The new album is quite brilliant, and his albums just seem to get better and better. The songs are superbly crafted, and have energy, passion, great melodies, and not surprisingly high production values. It's simply pure class, and is available from his Sunshine Corner Studios website ,and the CD is only a tenner.. He is also a little more old school, in that he is managing to release an album each year, which is a kind of throw-back to the bands we grew up listening to in late 1970s, where an album a year from them was more the norm. Times have certainly changed on that score... Hopefully album number 6 this time next year? 😉

I took the photo of Smiley and bassist Craig Adams when I joined them and the rest of The Alarm at the Abbey Road recording studios for The Scriptures project. To find out more about that amazing experience you will need to buy the Lives & Times book, my previous bowel cancer charity book, published in 2015.

My mother passed away after in August 2016 after a four year battle with bowel cancer, and all proceeds raised from the new book and everything else I do are donated to the Beating Bowel Cancer charity. The photo of Mum was taken a few days before her bowel operation in September 2012. Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK, but if detected early it can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases. Increasing awareness about this awful disease is key to reducing the numbers being lost to it. Early diagnosis gives patients a really good chance of beating it, but these rates are still too low. All proceeds raised form sales of the forthcoming book will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer / Bowel Cancer UK, the UK's leading bowel cancer charity. There are lots of items currently for sale on my www.bowelcancerfundraising.co.uk website.

Jon & Jillian Maclaren-Odgers to Feature in Bowel Cancer Charity Book

This weekend I will be heading to Llandudno for the annual Gathering. The music of The Alarm takes centre stage for two nights. I say two nights, but some people will be making it into a 4 day event! It's one of the highlights of the year, and a time to enjoy the music and catching up with many friends.

So I am really happy to announce that, two friends, Jillian & Jon Maclaren-Odgers have agreed to be in the new book, and I will catch up with them for chat, and to do the photo over the weekend. I first met Jillian at Abbey Road studios in 2014, and I met Jon at last year's Gathering. Jon plays drums for The Men They Couldn't Hang. I bought the band's debut album, and have just pre-ordered their forthcoming record, so there is quite a gap in between! It should be a cracking chapter 😊

Jillian with her copy of Lives & Times

My Mum lost her 4 year battle with bowel cancer in 2016. Although the operation to remove the tumour from her bowel in 2012 was successful, the cancer spread to her lungs and she underwent a further 4 operations. Finally the cancer spread to her brain, and she died peacefully with me, my brother, and sister at her bedside, at the nursing home where she spent the final weeks of her life. Bowel is the second highest cancer killer in the UK, but if detected early it can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases. Raising awareness is key, as is improving early detection rates. All proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to Bowel Cancer UK / Beating Cancer, who have recently merged to become the UK's leading bowel cancer charity.

The book is the follow up to 2015's Lives & Times, which has so far raised over £3500. This total also includes sales of art, mugs and the recently added "Stop Bowel Cancer" t-shirts. Please take a look, and all support is very deeply appreciated. www.bowelcancerfundraising.co.uk

Meeting Levellers Bassist Jeremy Cunningham

This week I had a fantastic experience meeting Jeremy Cunningham, bass player with The Levellers, at the band's studio in Brighton. I missed seeing the whole band rehearsing by one week, but what it did mean, was I got to spend an hour with Jeremy. He gave me a fascinating tour of the studio, and then I photographed him before chatting about the band for the chapter in the book. He couldn't have been nicer, and more supportive for what I am doing. The story doesn't quite end here though, as I will also be photographing the band from the photo pit at their Basingstoke gig in March. Like many fans I am eagerly waiting the March release of 'We The Collective', and have preordered the signed deluxe vinyl and CD package. 

The new book is progressing well, and is now over halfway towards completion. There is a possibility of it being ready by the end of the year, but as I am doing it myself there is no deadline, and it will be ready when it's done. The Record is being done in memory of my Mum, who passed away in 2016 after a 4 year battle with bowel cancer. All proceeds raised from sales of the book will be donated to Beating Bowel Cancer  / Bowel Cancer UK. The book is the follow up to Lives & Times, published in 2015, which has raised over £3500 to date. I have my own fundraising website www.bowelcancerfundraising.co.uk which sells my books, t-shirts and art to raise funds for the charity. Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK taking 16,000 lives each year. However, if caught early it can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases. Much more work needs to be done in raising awareness about this awful disease, and improving early diagnosis to give patients the best chance of beating bowel cancer.