The annual north-west Christmas Charity Pickleball Team Challenge rounded off another successful year in the region – and raised a lot of money for great local causes.
Team Holly faced Team Ivy on Friday 27 December at Oakhill, Whalley – with another event in Bolton on Monday 30 because the original day was so over-subscribed.
Overseen this year in Whalley by Dianne Duggan and Lindsey Hammond and Nisha Raja and Anis Jolly in Bolton, it’s the brainchild of the indefatigable Elaine Shallcross – who organised it all in advance then kept tabs on it from afar, taking a well-deserved holiday over the festive season for once.
“I don’t usually come on holiday till January,” she explains, “but through strange circumstances and the fact that for the first time in five years I did not need treatment in January meant I had booked the facilities and advertised and received people and didn’t want to cancel!”
The treatment Elaine refers to was for breast cancer; she had surgery, a double lumpectomy, followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. After that, she had infusions – one of which was always given in hospital by drip in the first month of the year.
“That’s now finished, thankfully,” she says, “and I’m on daily medication now to try and prevent it returning, so all’s well for now.
“My raising money through pickleball is a small token of my gratitude for the help and care I received. Pickleball and the support from the pickleball community was a huge help at the time – a fantastic distraction when it is so easy to let dark thoughts take over when you are fighting for survival.”
This year’s events made almost £1000 for local cancer charities, with causes benefiting thus far including Breast Cancer Now, Boot Out Cancer, Blackburn chemotherapy unit, Baggy Trousers, and Bolton Hospice – and next on the list will be the unit at Christie’s Hospital that operated on one of the players for brain cancer.
