Wisden editor and journalist Matthew Engel lost his 13-year old son to cancer two years ago and later wrote this heart-wrenching piece about the loss of his best friend in The Guardian. Engel started the 'Laurie Engel Fund' with the intention of raising £100,000 towards the £2 million cost of a specialised teenage unit at Birmingham Children's Hospital where Laurie was treated. It will provide six beds and top-notch facilities for the patients, including internet access, entertainment area, kitchen and a “chill zone”. It will offer teenagers having treatment privacy when they need it – and the chance to be sociable, and just be teenagers, when they need that. Six teenagers are diagnosed as suffering from cancer every day in the UK.
Well, the fund has raised over £400,000 so far, and the unit has been transformed from a dream to a reality.
