This beautiful image is a piece of artwork by Sarah Yates, who works under the name Fauna Graphic. We’re pleased to announce that Sarah is going to provide one of the ‘memories’ for our book. Three years ago, she was suffering with leukemia and she won her battle with the disease. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say when she contributes to the book. Back when I was young, over in Canada, my friend Tom Preston also survived leukemia and it’s the disease that sadly took my uncle Chris. I’m hopefully going to interview Tom for the book in a couple of weeks time. Anyhow, you can see more of Sarah’s work at http://www.faunagraphic.com.

The writer who has volunteered to work with Sarah on her piece is Simon Kirrane. I’ve known Simon for about 15 years now and he’s currently editing customer magazines with Future Plus. He’s a talented and very well-read writer and I know he’ll do a smashing job collaborating with Sarah and getting her memory down on paper for us. Our thanks go out to him and who knows, I might just buy him a pint of Blue Jay when next I have the opportunity.

Changing subject slightly, we also want to send our thoughts and best wishes to Toby and his wife Kim. Toby has just come out of surgery for a brain tumour. He’s my good friend Paul Tysall’s brother-in-law and we want to wish him a speedy recovery from the operation.