Good Grief Trust Spring Shopping & Fashion Show at Cannizaro House

The Good Grief Trust Spring Shopping & Fashion Show is taking place on Saturday 11 March at Hotel du Vin – Cannizaro House.

Linda Magistris lost her partner Graham to a rare cancer just over 2 years ago and was shocked at the lack of understanding and information available from GP’s, the hospital and hospice. She subsequently discovered that there is a need for radical improvement in bereavement support in the UK and so the Good Grief Trust was launched on BBC Breakfast a few months ago. It is a national initiative, to bring all charities and organisations under the one umbrella via a new fully comprehensive website, so no one is allowed to fall through the net if they are suffering from grief.

Linda is a local resident and worked with Graham back in the 70’s when she was in the original cast of Grange Hill and he was the Director. They never met again until 30 years later, when she bumped into him in Wimbledon Village, purely by accident and found out he had been living down the road from her for 20 years! They were then together for 8 amazing years until he died in September 2014 after only five and a half months after his diagnosis. Graham (Theakston) was a BAFTA award-winning TV Director.

Hotel du Vin are sponsoring several events this year for the Good Grief Trust, which is particularly poignant as Linda and Graham used to spend a great deal of time on the Common and in the hotel itself. The event will be from 1pm until 5pm and will be open to hotel guests and the public, as well as to a group of bereaved women who will be pampered with treatments all afternoon run by Lee Pycroft (Head Stylist from Britain’s Next Top Model).