Paton’s Purple Princesses

In February 2012 a colleague was diagnosed with breast cancer and, within a month, had surgery and began a course of chemotherapy.

To say staff at Cockermouth School were shocked is a huge understatement as this colleague is the type of person who, no matter what is going on in her own life, is always thinking of others, and, no matter how busy she is at work, always finds time to listen to everyone else’s problems.

Front of the Purple Princess T-Shirt produced and donated by PomPrint for the Cockermouth ladies’ entry in their ‘Race for Life’.

Many staff have rallied (as we all do in these circumstances) and baked and cooked and offered lifts for the family. It’s not a lot but everyone feels helpless at a time like this, which is why we all decided to enter a Cockermouth School team into this year’s Race for Life. We set up a Race for Life group called Paton’s Purple Princesses (purple being our colleague’s favourite colour!) and a fundraising page, then emailed all staff asking for team members and/or donations to our fundraising page. Currently, we have 38 team members and £295 in sponsorship; this doesn’t include any money that has been raised in school, which will be added at a later date. We are grateful to everyone who has donated so far, but I’m sure we can do better. If anyone would like to make a donation to this very worthy cause, please visit our fundraising page (Click to go to link).

We must also extend our thanks to PomPrint, who have generously donated our team t-shirts; we may not be the fastest on the field but we will certainly be the smartest!