Angel Child
A force for good in the fight against paediatric brain tumours
Like many bereaved parents before us, we created Angel Child to honour our son Alfie and to fund pioneering research into treatment for brain tumours. We hope Alfie’s legacy will have an impact not only in the UK but globally as we build Angel Child into an international fund bringing real medical progress and advancement to many, so that others like our angel child will live.
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Alfie’s story
Alfie was diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was just four. He had vomited – in a pattern, first thing in the morning, for a few days in a row. We knew something was wrong, but we had to fight for GPs to take us seriously and it wasn’t until our third visit – to a private paediatrician – that Alfie had an MRI. The scans showed a brain tumour the size of a tangerine, and we were rushed to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
In some ways, Alfie was “lucky”. His tumour was operable, which isn’t always the case when it comes to the brain. The surgery – which took over 10 hours – was successful thanks to Dr Owase Jeelani, an extraordinary paediatric neurosurgeon and world-renowned pioneer in separating conjoined twins.
Alfie recovered quickly, but as we were preparing to leave GOSH a week later, the oncology department struck the hammer blow: the tumour was an ependymoma, a rare (30 are diagnosed in the UK each year) high-grade tumour most prevalent in boys under the age of five. Alfie had the most aggressive strain.
Together with The Brain Tumour Charity, Angel Child is working with researchers, oncologists, surgeons, politicians and policy makers to dramatically re-shape the brain tumour landscape. Our shared ambition is to drive change through more research, more clinical trials, more communication between the global medical community, more commitment from pharmaceutical companies, as we push towards more successful, safer, kinder treatments for brain cancer, improved prognoses and life expectancy, and – ultimately – a cure.
We were sent to the US for treatment, organised and funded by the NHS. I was 34-weeks pregnant and our third child was born in Florida, midway through Alfie’s course of proton beam radiation.
A year later Alfie relapsed, and new tumours were found in his brain and spine. A second surgery at GOSH and more treatment – full proton-beam re-irradiation of his brain and spine – in the US followed, this time organised by the NHS and co-funded by the NHS and St Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis. He relapsed again a year later, and after a palliative surgery – again performed by Jeelani at GOSH – and despite his fighting spirit and expert care, Alfie died in August 2019, two months after his seventh birthday.
Nothing will bring Alfie back. Instead, we channel our heartbreak into hope.
Curing the Underserved
Angel Child has agreed to fund a research project in paediatric brain tumours at the Cambridge Cancer Centre. Angel Child will fund the entire cost of the project – called Curing the Underserved – and we need to raise £1.5m by 2026.
Curing the Underserved is led by Professor Richard Gilbertson, a paediatric oncology clinician, researcher and director of the Cambridge Cancer Centre at Cambridge University. His ambition is a world without cancer, and his passion, and the passion and expertise we witnessed in his team of researchers in Cambridge, is what we need if we’re going to make progress against this horrific disease.
Whilst Curing the Underserved relates to two paediatric brain tumours, the findings could impact many other, often hard-to-treat cancers, including pancreatic cancers.
It gives us all a reason to hope.
To date, our two biggest annual fundraisers are a family festival called Alfstock in Oxfordshire and a comedy evening at the Edinburgh Fringe called Underbelly’s Big Brain Tumour Benefit.
Friends and family have also made heroic individual fundraising efforts: a 50-mile trail run in California; an Everest in Snowdonia climbing challenge; an ultra-marathon in the Scottish Highlands; a boxing evening during which Alfie’s godfather was pounded but victorious; group Twilight Walks and Night Shine Walks; a company quiz evening; three fabulous London Marathons; and a garden opening.
Alfie’s young friends and cousins have started their own fundraising initiatives, such as a class 5K run, a mini triathlon, a loom-band jewellery sale and many more.
Angel Child has also benefited from individual donations and donations from family and company foundations and trusts. We are beyond grateful to you all for your extraordinary generosity.
Ed and Lucinda Bartlam
Contact Angel Child
If you would like to get in touch, you can reach us by email here
Donate
Please join our fundraising efforts!
