As many of your will know, we suddenly lost our beautiful Mum Katrina just before Christmas. She was a beloved Wife to our Dad Giovanni (Giuseppe) a wonderful Mother, Sister, Aunt, Cousin & Friend and her unexpected passing has left a big hole in our family. In memory of her we are trying to raise as much money as possible for three charities that all had special meaning to her.

The first was Asthma UK - Mum was a chronic Asthmatic since childhood, she actually took part in a research trial for one of her inhalers and knew immediately that she was not in the placebo group as her symptoms dramatically improved. Asthma always played a big part in Mum's life and whilst it has in recent times been well controlled, that was thanks to the multitude of sprays and tablets that she took and without which, she would not have been able to have the good quality of life that she had. More recently, as she was always on the look out for new innovations and treatments, she signed up to Asthma UK's newsletters and during the Pandemic told me that she found them very re-assuring to read.

The second charity, is Moorfields Eye Hospital - many of you will remember that Mum was rushed to Moorfields some years ago with a terrible eye infection, she all but lost the vision in that eye and it was a terrible time with us having to give mum drops in her eye every hour, 24hrs per day initially to get the infection under control. We all took our turns and from that point Mum used to refer to Stefano (who seemed to be Mum's favourite nurse) as Florence Nightingale! Following on from this, she also discovered that she had something called Fuchs disease the combination of which meant Mum had to have corneal transplants in both eyes, both done at Moorfields by our wonderful NHS. It is a testament to Mum's strong constitution and strength of character that she had all these operations without general anaesthetic and was awake throughout! By the end of this treatment Mum went from having severe sight issues to having fantastic vision in both eyes and not even needing glasses at one point! It really was a miracle and she was forever grateful to be living near such a centre of excellence.

The final charity is the Brain Appeal at the National Hospital - a place that always had a very special place in Mum's heart for numerous reasons. Before the days of the Apollo, Mum was the Medical Secretary to the Dean at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery at Queens Square for many years. It was a job she loved and was brilliant at, and she became indispensable to her boss the renowned Neurologist Dr Reginald Kelly. If anyone had a question, he would tell people, just ask Katrina, she knows everything there is to know about this place. Mum used to particularly enjoy when he would ask her to pop down to the entrance to welcome one of the many foreign dignitaries that came to see Dr Kelly. Eventually, he even asked her to become his private family PA but she regretfully had to refuse as he had cats which she was highly allergic too. Aside from a wonderful working experience, Mum also made some lifelong friends at the National and more recently, when Stefano fell ill and was rushed there, spent several weeks visiting the hospital with me and was delighted to find that it is still the amazing hospital it once was.

Thank you so much to all who are supporting us and the Memory of Katrina by donating to these very worthwhile causes.

With much love....

Giovanni, Nicoletta, Stefano, Angelo, Michael & Benjamin

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