We (Gem, Jen, Nia and Nancy) are joining the Prevent21 Challenge in memory of our friend, Emily, who tragically died in 2012 from Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Each of us will be walking/running/cycling 2.1 miles for 21 days and sharing our memories of Em each day.

By supporting SUDEP Action's Help Prevent21 Challenge you will be making a difference, raising awareness of the more than 21 deaths from epilepsy each week and helping to raise funds toward the SUDEP Action Prevent21 campaign aiming to reduce the number of epilepsy deaths through research and awareness. Knowledge saves lives.

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Day 1 Memory (by Gem): When Em and I were in secondary school, we went on a trip to Romania to help to build a school with a coach full of fellow Pembrokeshire teenagers. We drove all of the way to Romania singing Wonderwall by Oasis (someone had brought a guitar and I think this was the only song he could play). We stayed in a women’s refuge in a shared dorm and travelled every day to the school site, where we clad walls, compacted floors and played with the children. It was hot and sweaty and Em’s talent for French plaits was put into practice each morning to keep our hair out of our faces. We were all put on the cooking rota and a different group stayed at the refuge to prepare meals for everyone else each day! Em and I were involved in the making of a curry – very straightforward. However, when an entire goat was presented in the kitchen a few days later, Em was extremely relieved that her turn on the rota had passed! The highlight was an evening out in a Romanian nightclub – I think it was the first time we’d ever been ‘out’.

Day 2 Memory (by Jen): Em absolutely loved to be by the sea and in secondary school we were given the opportunity to take an 'enrichment' class every Wednesday afternoon. After some deliberation we managed to convince the school to allow our history teacher to take us surfing at the local beaches (history teacher seems an odd choice here but this is pembrokeshire of course). For onlookers it perhaps seemed a foolish endeavour as em and I were not the sportiest of teens, but two years later, we had religiously ventured out come rain, shine, wind and even occasionally hail, into the sea. Surfboards underarms, spirits high...every, single Wednesday. If the tide was up or the surf as flat as a pancake we would just head to the local cafe for a hot chocolate, but for the most part we were committed. It's no secret we were honestly a bit crap and em, livi and I spent a large amount of time fooling around rather than trying to stand up, however in our penultimate year of school we still managed to convince the powers that be to allow us all to attend a surf school in Portugal. Off we went to the Algarve in February of 2007 and so cemented a lifelong love of surfing and some incredible memories, even if it transpired that when we got back...we were still pretty rubbish. This picture (sorry for the quality) follows me everywhere and epitomises the ususal lack of surfing but more importantly, shows the joy we shared for the fabulous pembrokeshire coast.

Day 3 Memory (by Nancy): One of my favourite things about going to Emily’s house was that she didn’t have a television...not even one! This absolutely blew my mind when I was younger! Instead she had these wonderful board games that I’d never heard of, we would talk and tell stories (I still remember some spooky tales her mum Kate had told us!) and I am adamant that elderflower cordial only ever existed at her house. I loved when at her house we were doing other wonderful things together that didn’t revolve around a television screen.
     Anyway, one particular day at Em’s we were meant to be discussing tactics for our upcoming Duke of Edinburgh venture for which our group was called ‘The crazy leprechauns’ (I blame Nia for this title) but instead I remember eating homemade popcorn with lashings of sugar and playing a card game. During this, Emily pulled out beautiful handmade valentines cards for us. I’m not entirely sure where my nickname of Popple or Popple meista came from and I’m even more confused of Emily’s pseudonym of Brian!

Day 4 Memory (by Nia): I wanted to start my memories at the beginning, thinking about mine and Emily’s wonderful childhood. We both went to Spittal school (year group picture below) where we played ‘up and down tig’ on the playground, exchanged pokemon cards in the toilets, in between playing ‘college’, where we would pretend to drive around on motorbikes with our make believe boyfriends, which is ironic for me to look back on now 😅. Weekends often consisted of highly anticipated birthday parties, which were always full of questionable outfit choices (usually me), sugary foods and we can’t forget the infamous musical chairs! The second picture is from my 6th birthday and Em in this picture makes me smile every time I see it.
     Emily was always smiling and the image of her running up the playground, with her chopped fringe blowing in the wind and a beautiful grin on her face, will stay in my heart forever ❤️.

Day 5 Memory (by Gem): For as long as I can remember, Em was always the creative one in our friendship group. I’m sure she was even creating masterpieces in playgroup (where the picture below is taken). Emily’s creativity resulted in us creating a shop, imaginatively called Gemily by combining our names. We made a total profit of £5, by selling friendship bracelets. We felt like millionaires and were convinced that we were going to make a living as entrepreneurs. I also remember Kate, Em’s Mum, allowing us to paint the back wall of their house with ‘washable paint’. I think this must've been when we were in primary school. We decided on a garden scene and Em created beautiful trees and flowers. I can remember being VERY offended when she said that the birds I had painted looked like they were wearing shoes! Anyway, this ‘washable’ paint didn’t turn out to be as washable as we thought...I believe our piece of artwork lasted over ten years!

Day 6 Memory (by Jen): As well as art, Em also loved history. We were pretty typical as we went through a healthy obsession of pride and prejudice (although possibly took it to the next level when we decided to write letters to each other as though we were from this time). We also adored Lord of the Rings and whilst not strictly history....we always wished we would one day stumble into that world. I always thought Em would make a perfect, magical elf and a fairy was often her go to for fancy dress. As we moved into our later teens and uni our love of history grew and we would regularly head to a historic house or gallery (Em was doing history of art at uni). It was wonderful to have this shared passion and I'm so grateful for the memories we made.
     The first picture is a draft letter she was writing as we went through our ''Austen years", the second, Em dressed as a fairy (I'm sure she would throttle me for sharing this one ) and the third is from a visit to a Victorian open air museum called Blists Hill, where at Christmas, standing underneath a slightly wet snow machine to fully immerse oneself was an absolute must.

Day 7 Memory (by Nancy): Our primary school was right next to the village green in Spittal and on the occasional sunny day in Pembs we would be permitted to play on it during break time. The wooden horses next to the park, the big metal spider/insect injury magnet that was further down the bottom.... who hadn’t fallen off that and got a bump or break of some sorts?! And the memory of seeing Emily casually sitting there licking the bottom of what I think were clover flowers. I was disgusted and terrified she would be poisoned! That was until she informed us that the bottom of the flower was super sweet. And that was the start of it... hunting for clover flowers, trying to get a sugar rush during school hours!

Sophie Hill would always come through on this front .

Day 12 Memory (by Nia): Moving up to secondary school Emily and I naturally drifted towards different hobbies, but one thing which always brought us back together throughout school was the ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ adventures we undertook all the way through to the Gold award, which is where the below picture was taken. As you can see we were all thrilled to be walking through the wet Irish hills .
     My all time favourite memory from DofE happened during our silver award where we found ourselves lost, which was a fairly regular occurrence, and after desperately trying to make our way back to the path for what seemed like hours we came across a farm. However, the only way through the farm meant entering an electric fenced paddock, housing a rather large angry looking bull. After arguing over who would go first the majority of us made it through without a scratch but Emily was the last one to make the treacherous journey and in her haste to get past the bull, and climb under the fence, she caught her chin on the electric fence and was propelled forward! Although slightly shaken Emily was a great sport and we spent the rest of the day, and many occasions since, reliving the moment in stitches of laughter

Day 13 Memory (by Gem): Em and I were due to be born on the same day. But, due to Em arriving early and me arriving late, there was a 2 week age gap. Being so close in age resulted in many joint birthday parties. Our 4th party was joint with Jen and Alex. Kate, Em's Mum, made us an amazing train birthday cake with a carriage for each of us. We also had a joint 18th birthday party in Clarbeston Road Hall. We were so nervous that no one would come but it was a fantastic night! We had notebooks left out for people to write birthday messages throughout the night. The messages got progressively more crude and scruffy as the night went on! I remember sitting on the stairs at the end of night with Em, tipsy from one too many Smirnoff Ices, reading these messages. I still treasure that notebook today...even though some of the messages are about trying not to become a squirrel by hunting for nuts, written by Nia.

Day 14 Memory (by Jen): As we've seen, Em was passionate about music and anything to do with it. From singing, dancing to playing several instruments, em was there. And whilst I have zero talent when it comes to any of the above, with em, it just didn't matter. Music of all types was played in what ever activity we were doing. She even managed to get me to my first festival, quite an achievement when the thought of doing anything that didn't allow for a shower first thing in the morning was truly a nightmare. But, true to form, she proved me wrong. I had the best time and have been to many more since. Something I just don't think I would have experienced if it hadn't been for em. A few pics to share of Bestival, RHCP gig and one of our favourite places during uni, jam House

Day 15 Memory (by Nancy):  Today i have strayed slightly on the memory front! Instead of one specific thing I wanted to write about my memories of Emily in general... just the little things. Remembering the warmth of her house and having drop scones made on the aga. I think of Bongo, a dribble encrusted monkey TY beanie baby who was carted along to very sleep over. Making daisy chains on Spittal green. Her nickname of Fish given because she had the ability to move her bottom lip in and out extremely fast which apparently resembled a fish?! Maybe you had to be there to understand it... memories of laughing til our stomachs hurt at our legendary sleepovers. Coming up with slang terms thinking we were the bees knees that no one else would be in on our code. In secondary school her hairstyle with the uncanny resemblance of Avril Lavigne. Singing the Chicago sound track at the top of our lungs in the car. Her incredible artistic talents. Emily was one of the most chilled, zen individuals I have ever met and I always felt she should have been born in the era of hippies spreading the message of peace and love!

Day 16 Memory (by Nia): Spending time at Emily’s house was always so much fun, without the distraction of a TV we would be creative and come up with different games to play or songs to write, a personal favourite was our top hit ‘what would you do if you need a poo on a cold and country lane’, it was an absolute banger if I do say so myself. There was even a cassette tape of our ‘jungle sounds’ which I’m kind of glad went missing as I think we got a bit too into it . Continuing our creative partnership Em and I once painted a chest of drawers in my front garden, before we both headed back to Uni. We spent hours catching up, reminiscing and making plans and thanks to Em the drawers looked great...this is also the inspiration for my butterfly tattoo which is on the agenda for 2021 (sorry Mum).

Day 17 Memory (by Gem): The village green holds so many memories for me - we were so lucky to have such an 'outdoorsy' childhood. School sports days (the picture below – Nia on the far left sitting down, Em in the stripy tshirt, me in the pink cap and Jen in the pink tshirt), crab apple fights when we used to turn our bikes upside-down and spin the wheels to defend ourselves, playing mob (I’m not sure if this is a universally known game or if it was a Spittal thing), water fights in the summer, carnivals (Em and I dressed as a jar of coffee and a box of chocolates once), and I have a strangely vivid memory of sitting on a bench sorting out our joint Pokemon card collection! We kept them all in a file with special plastic wallets, where each card could have its own little individual pouch! Our pride and joy was a shiny Pikachu. There were many negotiations on the playground and village green, which fuelled our addiction. I don’t think we ever played the game that they were created for. However, we were definitely keen collectors!