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Dial-a-Cab Board member Tom Whitbread made the front cover of
his local paper recently when the Hackney Gazette ran a
piece and photo on page 1 and a fuller story and photo on page
four. The article was headed Kids’ charity founder waiting
for your call and was about the charity set up by Tom and
former DaC driver Bob Heath and getting more children’s names
put forward who have a wish they would like fulfilled. Tom and Bob have been helping seriously ill youngsters to make their dreams come true for almost 20 years. Bob’s wife, Jacqueline and a friend, Fred Wooding, help them. They are currently looking for more applicants to come forward. The pair set up Dial-a-Dream at DaC’s Brunswick Place office in 1991 and the charity has enabled more than 1,000 dreams to come true for kids nationwide. Tom, who lives in Dalston, told the Gazette that the number of requests had slowed and the charity wanted to offer more help - but needed to hear from youngster’s families. Dreams down the years have included sending kids to Florida, where Dial-a-Dream owns three villas near Disneyland. Showing the side that DaC drivers rarely hear of, Tom, who has three children and four grandchildren of his own, said that there was nothing like the smile on a child's face when Dial-a-Dream made their dream come true. |
Tom’s Dial-a-Dream makes the front page! |
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 This photo saying Dream Maker for Hire was part of the article |
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"The problem,"
said Tom, "is to find people to come up with the right dreams.
It has to be the child’s dream and no one else’s. We do not want
to hear from people interested only in a holiday. We have strict
criteria. If people meet that, we will do all we can to make
sure their child has an experience they will never forget." The list of dreams could fill up a page on their own and in addition to going abroad or wanting a bike etc, also include meetings with TV celebrities, footballers, WWE wrestlers and many other sports people! They have also arranged for children to spend a day with Gatwick customs staff and riding on a vintage railway. Call Sign readers will remember the recent article about sending 13-year-old cystic fibrosis sufferer, Jodie Crocker, to Disneyland with her family. Jodie |
then wanted to put something
back and will be running 5k in Hyde Park on September 6 to help raise more funds for cystic fibrosis research in the Adidas Challenge. Tom continued his interview by telling the paper: "If it gives them the willpower to say 'let me live another day', then we have done our job and the children have an experience they will cherish forever. The key thing now is hearing from other children. Please do get in touch. Whatever the dream, however big or small, we will do our best to achieve it." That applies to Call Sign readers too… For more details about the charity, go to HERE or email info@dial-a-dream.co.uk or call 020 8530 5589. By post, the address to contact is: 7 Addison Road, Wanstead, London, E11 2RG. |
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BEDFONT GREEN’S MIXED START |
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DaC’s Lee Pearce makes a stunning full stretch save
Bedfont Green
began life at step 4 football on the opening Saturday of their
new league - the Zamareto S
outh & West Division One
- following promotion as champions last term from the
Combined Counties, with a deserved home victory fixture
against Mangotsfield United. Their opponents were
relegated from the Premier division last season, which meant
that at that time they were two divisions above BG. |
off the crossbar, but nobody was
on hand to turn the rebound in. The
away side played to their strengths and hit several long balls
up to Mitchel Page and Luke Prosser, but they were thwarted time
and again by Fergus Moore and the impressive James Ward. The
Mangos looked dangerous on set-pieces, but the first 45 of the
new season belonged to The Green and on 32 minutes Russell Miner
played a pass inside from the right where Chris Henry
turned his marker inside out and raced goalwards to fire past
Tony Court in the visitor's goal. The visitors pulled a goal back when Hendy headed in at the near post from a set-piece. Dial-a-Cab driver / Bedfont Green goalkeeper Lee Pearce (J71) had to be at his best and pulled off a string of excellent saves, including one fully stretched effort that saved an almost certain goal and which drew applause from everyone in the ground. Mango players missed several good chances and paid the price on 88 minutes when Russell Miner used strength and pace to carry the ball into the area before finishing at a tight angle. There was to be no further drama and Bedfont Green took great pleasure in registering their first win at Step 4 football. Several days later, Bedfont Green tasted the other side when going down to defeat at Abingdon United’s Northcote |
 Lee shows Call Sign Bedfont Green’s new DaC training tops |
| Road ground
by 2 – 0. Elliott Osbourne-Ricketts opened the scoring on 28
minutes with a low drive and they doubled that after the break
when Nick Thorne scored with an unstoppable free-kick. The Green
hit the post twice and had two good efforts cleared off the
line, but it wasn’t to be. Lee Pearce told Call Sign: "The extra class of this league compared to the Combined Counties becomes obvious when you feel the threat of the opposing team being constant. The opposition look dangerous whenever they come forward and that wasn’t the case last season. However, by the way we’ve started, we must be looking very dangerous to our opponents and I think Chris Henry is going to have another good season poking the goals in for us." Report by Stewart Cook |
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