An amateur artist from Fulham has designed a charity Christmas card which will be sold to raise money to fight the disease which took her mum.

Caroline Copland created the design in memory of Janet Copland, who passed away at the age of 75, eight months after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Each year since losing her mum in 2014, Caroline has designed her own Christmas greetings cards and donated the money she would previously have spent on buying cards to the national charity Brain Tumour Research. And this year her design has been chosen by the charity and is available to a much wider audience.

Caroline’s design features the Hope Tree which is the centrepiece of Brain Tumour Research’s Christmas campaign which invites people to make a donation and write a message in support or in memory of a loved one, which is then placed on a tree. The Hope Trees are situated at the Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence including those at Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College.

Caroline, who lives in Orbain Road, said: “My mother’s brain tumour was so unfair; being indiscriminate there were no risk factors to manage – she always managed health problems so well and overcame them – there are no preventative measures that people can take to protect themselves and, of course, very few effective treatment options.

“For the two years after losing Moo – as we called her - I painted and had printed my own card and donated the money I might have spent on cards to Brain Tumour Research. The first showed Chelsea Old Church where we held her memorial service, in the snow, and the second featured my sister’s dog with a sprout on her nose!

“Never one to draw attention to herself, Moo would be horribly embarrassed but she would certainly be proud of the efforts I’ve made to fundraise for vital research to save others from the same fate. I really believe in this cause to beat brain tumours. We lost my my fabulous mother in eight months but the tumour took hold of her before any of us were aware what was happening.”

Janice Wright, Community Fundraising Manager for Brain Tumour Research in London, said: “We are enormously grateful to Caroline for creating this wonderful tribute to her mum which will help to bring hope to others this Christmas.”

For more information about the Hope Trees and to buy Brain Tumour Research Christmas cards please go to https://www.braintumourresearch.org/fundraise/christmas-cards

For further information, please contact:
Susan Castle-Smith at Brain Tumour Research on 01908 867206 or 07887 241639 or susan@braintumourresearch.org

Notes to Editors

Brain Tumour Research is the only national charity in the UK focused on funding sustainable research to find a cure for brain tumours. We are building a game-changing network of world-class Research Centres of Excellence in the UK. Embracing passionate member charities nationwide, £5.5 million was raised towards research and support during 2016.

We are campaigning to see the national spend on research into brain tumours increased to £30 - £35 million a year, in line with breast cancer and leukaemia. The charity is celebrating a year of high-profile campaigning on this issue following the unprecedented success of its petition in 2016. Following that, Brain Tumour Research is now taking a leading role in the Government’s Task and Finish Working Group convened to tackle the historic underfunding for research.

Key statistics on brain tumours:

• Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer
• They kill more children than leukaemia
• They kill more men under 45 than prostate cancer
• They kill more women under 35 than breast cancer
• Just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease
• In the UK 16,000 people each year are diagnosed with a brain tumour
• Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years compared with an average of 50% across all cancers
• Brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone, at any age
• Incidences of, and deaths from, brain tumours are increasing.

Please quote Brain Tumour Research as the source when using this information. Additional facts and statistics are available from our website including our latest Report on National Research Funding. We can also provide case-studies and research expertise for media.