Cancer Doesn't Care - Pelorous

It wasn’t long before we needed to have a proper base
and so in 1992 we opened our first office in Heather
House in Golders Green. We had for some time been
providing trained volunteers all of whom had
experienced cancer - either themselves or through
a family member - as befrienders to support our clients.
Now that we had an office, we were able to man the
helpline with trained volunteers as well.
Lifeline Centre for Health in Norwood House, later to
become Shield House, in Hendon. The capital costs of the
move were high and the increase in services meant
employing more professional staff and higher running
costs. We are indebted to the Trustees of the Kennedy
Leigh Foundation, the first major trust to give us financial
support, for recognising the potential in our fledgling
organisation and for their continuous support for the past
twenty years.
Chai was steadily gaining a reputation for excellence
and professionalism. Frances and I were invited to attend
several Government Forums on cancer and we were also
invited by the EU to Brussels as part of a British Delegation.
People from throughout the UK who wanted to start
cancer support groups contacted us for advice. In
addition Chai was invited to take part in The North
London Cancer Network, a network comprising the five
major cancer hospitals in North West London.
older – instead she has been the inspiration behind
Chai for the past twenty years.
We decided to organise three Natalie Shipman
Memorial Lectures for the following year to be held in
January, February and March. We booked the hall,
arranged advertisements for the media and designed
flyers to be circulated through kosher shops, Shuls etc.
The problem was that we had no money to pay for it all!
Lady J, who had continued to be of tremendous help
and encouragement to Frances and I since being our
‘Shadchan’, was adamant that we shouldn’t turn to the
Community for financial help. This was because the first
Gulf War had just begun and all available money was
needed for Israel. Fortunately we were given the All
Aboard Shop in Golders Green for two weeks to raise
money. With the help of a fantastic team of volunteers,
who managed to fill the shop with very saleable goods
for us to sell, we raised over £2500, a staggering amount
at that time for a charity shop!
Frances Winegarten z’l, Susan Shipman & Louise Hager
In July 1993 we held a Breast Cancer Awareness lecture
in Stamford Hill aimed at providing the religious
community in that area with vital information about
breast cancer. Over 800 women attended and
afterwards, through feedback from breast cancer
specialists, we discovered that at least 7 women who
had attended the lecture had found lumps and sought
medical help.
The Centre provided the space for us to introduce many
new services. Professional counselling, well man and well
woman screening, complementary therapies, laughter
clinic (the first of its kind in the U.K.), genetic counselling,
spiritual counselling, “Ask the Expert” lectures and many
more. In addition we were able to bring our volunteer
training and supervision in house. Most importantly,
however, people in need of emotional support were able
to access that help through “the back door”. They no
longer needed to place a phone call to ask for support;
instead they called to make an appointment for
aromatherapy or reflexology and this was their
comfortable way to start benefitting from Chai’s services,
often leading to the use of counselling later.
In November 1997, my husband Philip z’l was diagnosed
with an inoperable brain tumour and died after only two
months in January 1998. This was a bitter blow, especially
coming only eight years after losing Natalie. I must admit
that there were times when I found the responsibility of
running Chai and being surrounded by cancer on a daily
basis difficult to bear. But knowing that so many people
were relying on Chai ‘s support gave me the strength to
carry on.
There is no doubt that the establishment of Chai Lifeline
and its tremendous success was not achieved without
personal cost to both Frances and me. Frances was
involved with Chai on a daily basis at a time in her life
“Other minority groups
came to us for advice as
to how to start cancer
support groups in their
own communities.”
From then onwards we never looked back. We have
always felt the Alm-ghty’s guiding hand and in
response to the ever growing need Chai Lifeline grew at
an amazing pace. For many years after, however, we
continued to get criticism as to why, when cancer
knows no boundaries, was there the need for a Jewish
cancer support group. Amazingly this criticism came
from the Jewish, not the wider community. The non-
Jewish Community gave us their whole hearted support
and other minority groups came to us for advice as to
how to start cancer support groups in their own
communities.
The impact of this lecture was amazing. Eminent cancer
specialists started to approach us asking to speak at
our lectures! We continued to gain credibility in the
medical profession and soon had an impressive list of
Medical Patrons. We formed our Medical Advisory
Panel, which meets regularly at Chai and continues to
support and advise us to this day.
Despite our continuing growth we were getting very
few calls to the helpline. In fact most of the calls for help
were being made to the office number. We reached
the conclusion that people found it hard to ask for help
especially over the telephone and needed another
way to access our services. We decided the answer
was to open a Cancer Support Centre, a physical
place where people could just drop in, a place where
we could offer a variety of additional services.
In 1994 thanks to the invaluable help of our Trustee
Ernest Weinstein z’l, who found the premises and
supervised the construction, we opened the Chai
Frances Winegarten z’l, Susan Shipman, Ben Shipman, Philip Shipman z’l,
Mark Shipman, Jane Shipman, Stella Weinstein, Ernest Weinstein z’l
6 20 years of cancer support in the community
20 years of cancer support in the community 7