Brass band gig to help Abi Longfellow

Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band will perform as part of a special birthday concert to raise money to support Wakefield Hospice and a girl with a rare kidney disease.

Gordon Spedding, of Robin Hood, organised the Last Night at the Proms event as a “different” way to celebrate his 65th birthday.

An avid brass band fan, Mr Spedding comes from a family of musicians and his daughter, Anna plays the flugelhorn in the South Elmsall based band.

He arranged for the band, and Outwood singer Suzi Saperia, to play an outdoor concert for his friends and family on Saturday, August 15, following his birthday on August 7.

andy and jo longfellow with daughter abi aged 12 ..nhs refuse kidney drug treatment ,her dad is to give her a kidney transplant thou a drug to block disease is being refused so the operation is on hold.....also pictured elder sister jess

But he later decided to use the event to raise money for causes close to his heart.

Mr Spedding, 64, said: “I thought ‘I’ve sorted this all out and I have done all this hard work so I might as well open it to the public and raise money for charity’.

“You never know when you might need Wakefield Hospice, in fact a close friend of ours is in there at the moment, and it does some fantastic work but always needs support to keep that up.”

He has also chosen to support his neighbour Abi Longfellow, 12, who suffers from Dense Deposit Disease, which stops her kidneys from filtering waste from the blood.

Health bosses will not pay for the £393,000 Eculizumab drug she needs because her condition is too rare to be covered by the national funding policy, but not rare enough to qualify as an exceptional case.

Mr Spedding said he knew Abi was poorly with a kidney problem and as soon as he knew the full extent of her condition, he wanted to help fundraise for the drug.

The proms event, at the Millennium Green, on Leeds Road, Lofthouse, is free but there will be a collection and a raffle. It starts at 3pm.