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Author GP Taylor to support Sue Ryder Care

8 July 2008

Graham Taylor, the clergyman turned best-selling author, used to buy his clothes at Sue Ryder Care shops so when fundraiser Jackie Sedgwick contacted him asking him to do a fundraising talk for the charity he was very keen.  

She says ‘It’s funny how it happened – I e-mailed him on a wet January morning, and he phoned me in the afternoon saying he’d be delighted.  I must say I was uncharacteristically tongue-tied!’

He will talk about how he got started, his influences and his life at the lunch to be held at Monkbar Hotel in York on 18 September 2008.  Tickets are £30 and all profits will benefit Sue Ryder Care, the national healthcare charity.  The lunch will have wide appeal as Graham is quite a raconteur. 

GP Taylor (the name he writes under) was born and brought up in Scarborough.  He moved to London as a teenager where he worked in the record industry as promoter for CBS Records, returning north aged 22, where he joined the Yorkshire Police Force.  In 1995 he was ordained by the Church of England and became vicar of St Mary’s church in Cloughton, near Scarborough.  He wrote Shadowmancer in 2003, a dark thriller set in Yorkshire, drawing on history and local folklore.

One of his parishioners challenged him to write a children’s book.  When an internet publishing consultant could see ‘no market’ for a story aimed at children about Christianity and black magic set in the 18th century, he decided to sell his Harley Davidson motorbike, found a printer and filled his shed with 1,500 copies.

Word spread fast and soon he was sending out hundreds of copies. It was eventually republished by Faber and Faber. He was hotter than Potter and being compared with C. S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Sue Ryder Care has 14 care centres across the UK.  The nearest to York are Holme Hall, the neurological centre in East Yorkshire and Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds.  Here the charity provides specialist care for life-limiting conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, motor neurone disease, stroke and acquired brain injury.

Its vision – “Care that liberates lives” – means that the charity cares for all of a person’s needs be they physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual and is dedicated to helping people get the best from their lives, living with chronic and terminal conditions and illnesses.
 
Jackie says ‘In the UK alone, 1 million people require neurological care. Also it is estimated that more than 1 in 3 people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.  With your help we are able to provide the expert care necessary.  We need to raise at least £13 million a year just to maintain our services, £2.5 million across Yorkshire.’ 

Space is limited so booking is essential.  Further details are available from Jackie Sedgwick at the Sue Ryder Care fundraising office in York on 01904 426920 or email york@suerydercare.org

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