A colleague of mine in the Liberal Democrats recently sent me a message regarding the death of her cousin. A few hours before she died, her cousin’s daughter took a few private minutes to record Paolo Nutini’s Autumn into her mobile phone, without accompaniment. She forwarded the following email, I presume from another close relative:

A few hours before Debbie died, Sarah went into her bedroom and recorded a song onto her mobile phone with no music.  A few days later, Charlie Mole added an accompaniment.  As many of you saw, it was played as we carried Debbie into the Church and it was part of the video tribute to Debbie.

Sarah’s song, with its film tribute can now be seen on You Tube.  This is the link:

Please go to it, listen and enjoy.

We have set up the Debbie Phillips Cervical Cancer Research Fund under the UCL Cancer Research Trust.  In terms of research, as we found out during Debbie’s illness, cervical is the “poor relation” to many other cancers, and we want to change that.  The more people who listen to Sarah’s song, the more likely that we will receive some money from YouTube.  With that in mind Please, Please, Please forward the link to all your friends, workmates and colleagues wherever they may be.  We are looking for millions of hits here, so help!  There is also a link enabling people to make donations directly from Sarah’s page.  If we can, we want to make this a tool to raise a lot of money.

I am sorry that there are so many addressees to this e-mail.  I did choose you all individually – I didn’t hit the “send to all” button.  I think that what happened with Sarah that night was very special.  I hope you agree.

Thank you.

Mark