Chapter One – The Beginning
As parents you really don’t expect to be writing this about your son – what he achieved in his 23 years with us, after passing away suddenly in March 2016 with the condition S.A.D.S. (Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome).
To tell the story of the Foundation, I need to tell the story of Alex.
As a child he would always want to have fun especially anything to do with cars/go karts or something that he could go fast in or even a water shoot that made him travel fast. As for the ultimate, Formula 1, he never missed a race on the TV.
At ten years old Alex turned to football for a year at Warsash Wasps but in his blood, he loved rugby, so he went to Havant Rugby Club under 12’s to under 16’s.
At 13 he joined the Air Training Corps at 13 with 1350 Squadron in Fareham. This he loved and gained the rank of Flight Sergeant at 18 before he left to go to University at The University of West of England where he gained a 2.1 in Biomedical Science.
Back from university he worked at Moorgreen Hospital as a care assistant, helping adults before embarking on another degree, this time at Portsmouth University.
His other passion was his Xbox. He spent many hours on there with one of his best mate Ollie.
Alex had a long and varied list of interests including golf, cars, Xbox, freemasonry to name but a few – he spent many hours on his Xbox with one of his best mates, Ollie.
Over his all too brief life he helped many people but never shouted about it – this was just Alex’s way. He touched so many people’s lives over the years and that was very apparent when we laid him to rest at the crematorium in Hedge End. As the rain came down people stood tall, all there without a worry about the weather to remember and celebrate his life. The ATC lead us in as a guard of honour up the pathway and my mates carried him in – in true fashion you could imagine him saying “this is my day”, one of Alex’s sayings.
Chapter Two – Where Next?
For anyone who has experienced the loss of a child, you can’t help but think “WHY?” and “Is this real? Are we going to wake up one day and find it was only a dream, he will be home soon?” The answer though is “NO“, and as hard as it is you must then think about what comes next. That’s when we decided to form a Foundation in Alex’s memory, his legacy and to keep his memory alive.
With the idea in place we decided on a logo and kept it simple, that way people that either new Alex or didn’t know him could relate to the Foundation. We as a family wanted to make other families aware of the condition, S.A.D.S. is all too common but to this day very few people are aware of it. An initial goal was to raise enough money to fund our own screening through C.R.Y. and this we achieved in March 2019. where we had 107 young people screened for the condition. I remember it was a brilliant day, people turned up even when they were not booked in for a screening – 107 young people were screened for the condition on the day. Others came just to support us and talk about what we had achieved, we even found ourselves on prime time TV with BBC South Today spreading the word.
Another part of our journey is providing and supporting different organisations with life saving equipment in the form of Defibrillators. Our very first one was installed in our local community pub, The Sir Joseph Paxton, in 2017. Dave, Vikki and all the staff there have supported us and other good causes since they arrived at the pub including support for units at Locks Heath Pumas RFC, Titchfield Boxing Club, Horndean Football Club (training unit), Sarisbury Junior School and soon, also Sarisbury Infant School. These units will one day save a life. We still want to put as many defibrillators as we can in the community and it’s the generosity of yourselves that makes this happen.
Chapter Three – Fund Raising Events
Where do you start? Everything we have achieved so far has taken a lot of time and energy from a lot of people. Here’s how we set about getting the foundation off the ground:
Phase One
It’s all in the “Idea Showers” – get some good friends around for a few drinks, something to eat, get chatting and see if the ideas begin to flow.
Phase Two
Next you need a small committee to help you plan the next 18 months – that sounds straight forward but it is hard work! With the invaluable help of the community, this is what we have done so far:
- Organised 4 themed ball events (always in November)
- Charity fun days
- Car boot sales
- Christmas and summer fairs
- John ‘O’Groats to Lands’ End cycle ride
- London to Brighton cycle ride
- Body Shop parties
- Halloween parties
- Show on the green
- Rugby tournament
- Race nights
- Make-up parties
- Quiz nights
- Decorative bottles
- Tesco bag packing
This is an ongoing list, but you can see what you can achieve and each event helps raise money for community projects.
Chapter Four – Moving Forward
As you are all aware, we are going through some really difficult times with this horrible COVID 19 virus. Not only losing loved ones but not being able to see them and give them a big hug. But with the nations coming together as one will beat this. We have seen so many inspiring events for raising money for our brave front line NHS staff in true British fashion.
We continue to support C.R.Y but also we offer support to local charities such as Heart Start, who provide free training for defibrillators. This connects really well with us – we provide the units, they organise a training session and help to make you more confident were you to use one in an emergency. Also, we work with Operation Help the Homeless, donating every Christmas when people find it hard in the cold temperatures.
You can read more about many of our past fund raising and awareness activities on our website and our Facebook page for The Alex Wardle Foundation so please visit and take a look.
We hope you to see you all soon when we can start organising more events and we thank you for your continuing support.
Kind regards,
Steve, Denise & Gemma