Members of the Northumbria Widows Sons & Reivers answered the call to action last Saturday, from the East Midlands Chapter, along with other Chapters from Cheshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Devon and Somerset and as far afield as the West Midlands, to create a little magic for an East Midlands honorary member.
Matty, a 16 year old from Mountsorrel, who suffers from Medulla Blastoma, became an honorary member of the East Midlands Chapter 9 months ago. The Chapter decided that they would treat him, and his family, to a helicopter ride, however, one thing led to another and a crazy idea evolved to invite as many bikes as possible to attend his school field to spell out his name and the Masonic Square and Compasses, when the helicopter flew over during its journey.
Local Lodges and Chapters came together, donating the funds to make the idea a reality within a day, and one of the local members offered to feed and water all the participants, as he owned catering equipment, donating all the profits from the day to the Chapters charity account.
What appeared to be a case of straight forward logistics, in employing a Drone Pilot to take photographs prior to the fly over, became that more difficult when Pilot 1 was unfortunately told to self-isolate by track and trace, Pilot 2 got his dates mixed up and was unfortunately away on holiday, however Pilot 3 and 4 said that they were both available. On the day Pilot 3 was called away to work at short notice leaving Pilot 4. All was looking good but alas it was not to be as they were let down by technology with a broken cable. Luckily a backup plan was hatched and it was now down to Matty with a camera and a telephoto lens.
Matty said he was too busy looking at everything to concentrate on taking pictures, Steve his dad was in so much pain as Alison, Matty’s mum, was squeezing his hand so hard in a combination of fear and excitement and Matty’s sister Molly was just admiring the view.
Many thanks to W.Bro Peter Younger for the submission of this article.
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