Caroline’s Campaign has feel-good factor

If you look good, you feel good — that’s the key to a campaign which helps women suffering from cancer to have a £1,000 makeover. And now a group of charity volunteers in Saddleworth want to find four Oldham women to share in a glamorous day which lifts the spirits and puts cancer in the background.

Janice Barker found out how Caroline’s Campaign is helping women face their future with a (lip-glossed) smile.

When broadcaster and presenter Caroline Monk was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer in 2004 aged 34, she was devastated.

Surgery and chemotherapy were hard to endure, but the loss of her hair and looks made her condition even harder to cope with.

But the feisty female decided to fight back. And she used her experiences to start Caroline’s Campaign in 2007, a charity which gives women back their pride.

From a well-cut wig, to make-up and even tattooed eyebrows, the makeovers give women back their lost looks.

And now the Saddleworth Ladies Fund-raising Committee is asking Chronicle readers to nominate four local women who are undergoing treatment for cancer and who they feel deserve the stylish makeovers.

Caroline, who is now celebrity co-ordinator for the Variety Club of Great Britain, said: “Losing your hair is so much more than just personal vanity. It’s how other people perceive you.

“Helping people with cancer is not just about cures and funding research, it’s about caring for people who go through it.”

Variety

The fund-raising committee is made up of eight local women — Lucy Plevin (the chairman), Louise Holt, Lisa Stead, Sylvia Torr, Shelagh Taylor, Deborah Martin, Mandy Smith and Jane Cooksey.

Aged from 34 to 60, they raise money for their chosen charity over the year with a variety events such as nights out and fashion shows with raffle prizes generously donated by local people and businesses.

Over 30 years the committee has raised thousands for charity, and recent good causes include Oldham’s Support group for Children with Autism (OSCA) and Oldham Young Carers.

Louise Holt, who has been on the committee for nine years after taking over from her mother, said: “It started with Guide Dogs for the Blind, but over the years it has evolved. We look for a charity each year, and we chose Christie’s because one of our committee members had breast cancer.

“We are so well supported in Saddleworth, that’s why we like to have a charity local to Oldham or Saddleworth.”

Last year they managed to bring in £11,000. Of this, £7,000 has already been handed to Christies at Oldham, but the committee felt the remaining £4,000 should go to Caroline’s Campaign.

“We hope to find four local women who are undergoing or coming to the end of their treatment,” she added.

One woman who knows all about the benefit of Caroline’s Campaign is Gabby Mottershead who has already been a speaker at a Saddleworth Fund-raising Committee event.

She was 45 and working at the offices at Slumberland in Royton in 2008 when she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer.

She had chemotherapy, a mastectomy, followed by radiotherapy, and has since had a breast reconstruction.

Gabby was nominated for the Caroline’s Campaign makeover by Macmillan Cancer nurses and described the experience as wonderful.

She added: “We met up with Caroline in Manchester and chose our wigs, which we had styled, and I had my eyebrows tattooed because I had lost all my hair, which made a huge difference.

“I had make up and false eyelashes, then we were photographed. It was just what I needed, a real boost psychologically. Chemotherapy is so grim.

“I remember my friend burst into tears when she saw me because she said I looked normal again.”

Anyone wanting to support Saddleworth Ladies Fund-raising Committee might be interested in a Michaelmass Ball at the Saddleworth Hotel on September 17.

To nominate a local woman to have one of the Caroline’s Campaign makeovers, write to Lucy Plevin at The Sycamores, Kinders Lane, Greenfield, OL3 7PB.