On Sunday 7th September 2008 the LTFUC took over part of the Piazza in Covent Garden and attracted many people to their site with a great display consisting of vintage taxis, tombola and raffle stalls with great prizes on offer and quizzes for drivers and visitors.

At noon Hon. Chairman, David Lessman, made an official presentation of 20 Children’s Wheelchairs, total value £4,000, to Sue Dowell, the London Fundraising Manager of the British Red Cross and these were proudly displayed by us at the Piazza.  The fund receives many appeals every month and one of these was a request from the British Red Cross to purchase some much needed wheelchairs and we were very happy to help this worthy cause.  Sue thanked the LTFUC and said the chairs will greatly improve the lives of the children.  Nigel Googe, a British Red Cross volunteer, has since written to us with the following story:  “I received a call at 2pm from the Royal London Hospital last Friday with an urgent request for a wheelchair suitable for a 5 year old – one of their long term patients was a little girl who would only be allowed to go home for the weekend if they could find a suitable wheelchair for her.  Thanks to the donation of new chairs from the LTFUC, we had a chair available and the girl’s father was with me by 5pm to collect it.  The relief and gratitude on the father’s face will stay with me for a very long time.  That wheelchair meant that he could have his daughter home surrounded by her family for the weekend and you can’t put a price on that.”

The crowd took great interest in looking at the vintage taxis and we would like to thank Doug Cheshire of the LVTA for supplying these and also extend grateful thanks to the two drivers, Martin Hayter and Graham Waite.  The tombola stand also attracted large crowds and the star attraction, a huge white cuddly bear was won by a family from Melbourne, Australia, who regrettably had to hand him back, being too large to travel with.  He was replaced with a much smaller bear for the long journey back to Australia and the huge bear was later won by a delighted young Ben Mearso Clark, whose father is a taxi driver.

The raffle prize winners are listed below and we thank Costco of Chingford for donating the first prize of a flat screen TV:

We congratulate Barry Caplin on winning the Drivers’ Quiz and his prize was a ‘Destination-London’ boxed game.  Congratulations also go to Mr Betts of London, N19, who scored a maximum in the Visitors’ Quiz and he won a 2 hour guided tour of London donated and given by Blue Badge driver Gerald Nathanson, to whom we are most grateful.

The Hon. President, Hon. Chairman and Committee are deeply grateful to Covent Garden Management for not charging us for the site and we thank them most sincerely for enabling us to raise much needed funds.

Raymond Levy
(Press Officer)