A new book of collected poems by some of the top poets in the country will be available this weekend with all money raised going towards the CDH UK charity which helps babies born with diaphragm problems.
The man responsible for collating the poems in the book is the Salford author and fundraiser Simon Williams.
Simon called into the SalfordOnline.com offices today to tell us more about the book and how it all came to fruition.
“A good friend of mine’s wife is expecting her first child and she has been told that the child will be born with CDH, basically this means the child may have only half a stomach.
CDH stand for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. It causes a hole in the diaphragm and can stop the baby’s lungs from developing properly.
A baby with CDH is born every 10 minutes worldwide
Pregnancies can be more traumatic than normal and mums can be left with a variety of conditions. The baby may not cry after he or she is delivered and may have blueish-coloured skin.
After the birth, babies with CDH may need to be intubated and many will spend the first 24 hours of their life in Intenstive Care units to stabilise their breathing.
A rescue therapy using a lung and heart bypass machine called ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) may also be used, but there are only a handful of these machines available in the UK.
Simon said: “I know that Salford people are the salt of the earth and I decided that a poetry book would be a great way of raising money for the charity.
“Initially I was going to attempt to write all 16 poems but that would have meant I would have ended up buying most copies myself!
“However I was put in touch with some great local poets, and I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart, Mike Duff and Mike Garry, who without hesitation kindly sent me previously unpublished poems.
“Other contributors included Scott Todd, who lives in New Zealand, again another great poet, we have a 70-year-old Salford lady Noreen Bailey, Jimmy Twamley, Carol Robson, Sharon Louise Manhood, JB Barrington, Jimmy Potts and many more.
“The book is entitled, ‘Salford, We Help Our Own’ which is exactly what the people here do.
“You can guarantee that the people of Salford are the most generous when it comes to helping out those less fortunate, and I’m proud to be from Salford.”
The book is limited to 200 copies and is available to buy from The Dog and Partridge pub on Church Street, Eccles.
It costs just £5 with all proceeds going to this most worthwhile of charities.
So dig deep and buy a copy, its highly recommended with poems, sad, funny and thoughtful, read and enjoy.
