donor day photocall

What a week...Oli arrived at my house on Sunday evening for a big family supper and early on Monday morning we set off to Leicester Square for the Donor Day photo call, which Holly S had organised to publicise her fantastic campaign - 'The Gift Of Life'.

It was so amazing to meet everyone there, especially Holly S and Emily who I had got to know through our blogs and through our common interests (transplants!). Despite the fact we'd never met before we immediately all got on and talked non stop. I also met lots of other transplant recipients including the lovely Molly who has had a small bowel, liver and pancreas transplant and Maribel who has had two liver transplants. Channel 4 were also there, filming for the documentary they are making about Holly's campaign. Having a camera stuck in your face every time you spoke soon became a normality!

That's me in the pink tights

The photographers arrived and we posed waving the tea bag flyers about and huddling around the Donor desks. Emily ran off to try and find some celebrities to be in the photos (Leicester Square is quite celeb ridden early on a Monday morning due to quite a few radio stations being located there) and came back two minutes later with the lovely Faye Ripley from Cold Feet. Cold Feet being one of my most favourite TV dramas ever I was just a little bit star struck and had to hold back from throwing myself at her and rambling on about all the life lessons I'd learnt from Cold Feet! Anyway, she was fab and said she wholeheartedly supported the campaign and was happy to be photographed wearing the Gift of Life t-shirt.

Faye and Holly S

The first person to sign up

Oli and I wondered off for some lunch with my Mum after the goodbyes, and as we were nearing Soho my phone rang. It was Emily who informed me that Alexandra Burke (winner of the X-Factor)'s Mum, Melissa Bell, was coming down to be photographed. She is waiting for a kidney, and both her and Alexandra were very supportive of the campaign. Seeing as the photographers had gone Oli and I rushed back and took lots of photos of Melissa. She was such a lovely lady - she said she found it very moving meeting people that had had transplants and were doing so well, and living life normally again. Fingers crossed Melissa's kidney comes along soon, she deserves it.

Melissa (on the left) with everyone


Holly and Melissa

More on Donor Day tomorrow...