Fylde Mark Lodge gifts £1,000 to Sands charity
   
Members of Fylde Lodge of Mark Master Masons No 296 including Deputy Provincial Grand Master Keith Beardmore had a pleasant, if tinged with sadness, duty to perform when they attended a meeting of Blackpool and Preston Sands to meet up with the charity’s chair Helen Cooper and her colleagues to present a cheque for £1,000 to the group.
(Centre picture) Ernie Gavan hands over a cheque to Helen Cooper and her colleagues with Keith Beardmore,
Rory Maskell and David Bell
Blackpool and Preston Sands is part of the Sands UK-wide network of local groups offering emotional support and practical help if a baby has died during pregnancy, at birth, or soon afterwards. The group works closely with local hospitals such as Blackpool Victoria to help provide the best possible bereavement care when, sadly, a baby dies.
 
Mark Masons Kevin, Ernie Gavan, David Bell and Rory Maskell heard from Helen that Sands was first founded in 1978 by a small group of bereaved parents who were devastated by the deaths of their babies and by the total lack of acknowledgement and understanding of the significance and impact of their loss.
 
Since its founding Sands has supported many thousands of families throughout the UK whose babies have died, offering emotional support, comfort, information and professional counselling and practical help. This country has one of the highest rates of prenatal death in the developed world with the shocking reality that, despite medical advances, 17 babies are stillborn or die under one month old every day.
Keith Beardmore and Helen Cooper, chair of Blackpool and Preston Sands
Sands works tirelessly to raise funds for research and campaigns for the government to address the situation as a matter of priority.
 
Locally, Sands working with Fylde Council and Blackpool Victoria, have set up a memorial garden at Lytham Crematorium which is tranquil place where families can remember their own baby in peace. They have also provided a separate sound-proofed suite at the maternity unit of BVH, the Oasis, for mothers who suffer the devastating heartbreak of losing an infant.
 
Keith Beardmore told Helen of his first-hand knowledge of the situation, about the heartache his family experienced when his sister-in-law lost a baby at full term.
 
Rory Maskell, who is a past master of Fylde Mark, first raised awareness of Sands to the lodge when a family friend lost a baby. His wife Sheila went on an extraordinary trek and raised a hard earned £400 in sponsorship from friends, enduring many privations by walking in conflict-stricken Palestine, living in Bedouin tents and sleeping in the desert during her walk. This prompted Fylde Mark to make Sands one of its chosen good causes to support.
 
Helen, thanking the Fylde Masons for their gift, said that Sands relies on the generosity of its supporters to raise the funding needed to deliver the wide range of services they have to offer. Blackpool and Preston Sands has several new ventures in the pipeline and intends to commission a sculpture in 2015 for the memorial garden as well as suitably engraved memorial stones.
 
For further information or to support Sands visit the website: www.blackpoolprestonsands.wordpress.com
 
Article and Photographs courtesy of Bob Boal