Alison Hitchcock is a great story teller and she told us the story about the wonderful cancer charity “From Me to You” that she co-founded, somewhat accidentally, with cancer survivor Brian Grievely.

She began with some statistics from Macmillan Cancer Support: in the UK someone is diagnosed with cancer every 2 minutes, so everyone is affected somehow.

30% of people with cancer feel lonely and 25% of those people will suffer from depression. For women recovering from breast cancer, loneliness is more detrimental to recovery than smoking or obesity. People don’t know what to say to someone with cancer so they say nothing. Someone with cancer may not be able to work so can feel disconnected and isolated.

Alison met co-founder of the charity Brian on a yoga holiday in 1989. Not long afterwards he was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer. Alison didn’t know what to do or say, but she promised to write letters to cheer him up. She wrote about things that made her feel good – hundreds of letters over time about every day nonsense, and he has kept them all! He admitted he was lonely and when he opened the letters it felt like Alison was talking to him and he didn’t seem so alone. He opened the letters when he was feeling low.

In 2013 Brian got the all clear from his cancer and went back to normal life. In 2017 Alison and Brian were recorded for BBC Radio 4’s ” Listening Project” and their story was broadcast that Christmas: “What do you write to someone who’s got cancer?” – that gave them the idea for workshops which led to “Donate a letter”.

The aim of the letters is to help to ease the isolation and loneliness experienced by patients. The charity sent 15,000 anonymous letters this year. It took 9 years to build up to this.

Alison played some great videos of recipients of letters, and some examples of letters read by actors.

We were all encouraged to pick up a card from the back of the room and write a letter. She said “once you get writing, trust your pen.” You just need to think of an opening line, perhaps share an anecdote, ask a question and then sign off.

Such a simple idea, as so often the best ones are!

Alison was nominated for a Lorraine Kelly “Women of the Year” award this year – those of us in conference are not surprised!

Find out more at From Me to You.