STARS and BRAS

As we get ready for the serious business of the SMASHSMA reception with Nick Clegg at the House of Commons there is a bit of other business going on that may raise the profile of Spinal Muscular Atrophy even higher.

We decided early on in this campaign that if we were going to alert people to this dreadful disease not everything could be about the disease itself. To capture attention , imagination and inspiration you sometimes have to appeal to senses other than empathy.

We could not have a better example than the wonderful celebrity art bra auction that will take place later this year.

First of all let's introduce you to the splendiferous Linda Kirkbride @lindakirkbride1

LINDA and HER ART BRAS

Linda came up with the idea of creating a bra that could be auctioned to raise money for the official SMASHSMA charity at Edinburgh University.

SMASHSMA CHARITY DONATIONS PAGE


She had made the bras before themed around the charity that she was supporting. Straight away it was suggested that the theme would be STARS - Linda set to work getting her materials and we started to think about how to get the highest possible donation.

As you know we have had amazing support ( no pun intended ) from celebrities ever since Estella died last November. Just this week Tom Cruise tweeted her details to millions of people. It made sense then that if we could get a celebrity to model the bra then this would raise the profile of SMA and at the same time increase the bids that we would get towards research.

So off we went to Natalie Cassidy who has been amazing since her first tweet about Estella.

 I asked if she knew anybody who may model the bra ( secretky hoping that she would say that she would ) - Natalie came back though with another suggestion - and that's how we met Nicola Mclean.

Nicola has been fantastic and straight away said taht she would be the model for the charity art bra. One of her bras is currently winging its way to us so that Linda can start work with the arty side of the project. Linda has not only been so supportive and enthusiastic she has also managed to get us hundreds of followers with her retweets. She has also spread the word among other celebrities who are also retweeting for our little Tinker, Estella. An amazing lady - please follow her on Twitter @mrsnicolamclean

So there we have it. Sometime before the end of the year Nicola will be modelling the bra and we will be holding a charity auction. There is talk of Linda making more bras for more celebrities as well and we are being followed by two excellent candidates in Natasha Giggs and Heather Bianchi

Two more celbrities who mention Estella a lot.

I can never say how gratteful I am for all of this enthusiasm and commitment from celebrities who are going the extra mile to alert people to the number ONE genetic killer of babies. There are some superb people about and I know that Estella would have had a cheeky smile for all of them.

OK - anybody want to start the bidding for a CELEBRITY SMASHSMA BRA ?

Thanks Nat - You are unbleievable.

and Nicola - you're an Angel