Month: March 2023

Six-times World Snooker champion Steve Davis helped pocket plenty of cash for local children’s charity Molly Ollys with two appearances in Warwick this week.

An Evening With Steve Davis OBE, on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, offered visitors the chance to enjoy an exclusive audience with the sporting legend at Warwick Spice in Smith Street.

A household name for over 30 years, the event charted Steve’s career, from meeting manager Barry Hearn and his unstoppable dominance of the snooker world in the 1980s, through to the famous black ball final against Dennis Taylor – which attracted more than 18.5million TV viewers – and his emotional farewell at The Crucible Theatre in 2016 when he retired from competitive play.

He shared plenty of anecdotes and also talked about how he since turned his love of music into a regular role as a music DJ.

A raffle and auction on both nights included the chance to win a signed snooker cue and snooker ball as well as a raft of other prizes.

Reflecting on the cause, Steve said: “Molly Ollys, like many other small charities, doesn’t get massive funding and needs all the support it can get. You can’t underestimate how wonderful it is to give children a little bit of hope and reassurance that they’re not on their own.

“For everyone who is a snooker fan who learns about the charity through this event, please make a donation to help Molly Ollys to grow and continue to do their good work.

“When you come on the road you meet some wonderful people representing wonderful charities and you realise just how many people are doing so much good work.”

Whilst still a familiar face and voice in the BBC snooker commentary box, Steve admitted his playing days were long behind him.

“Once I retired I decided that was the end of the line. There was no point in playing anymore and just enjoy being a spectator and enjoying the fact that somewhere down the line I used to be quite good at the game. I don’t have any more desire to try and get a ball in a hole with a pointy stick! I’ve exhausted that part of my life now.”

Warwick-based Molly Ollys was established following the death of Rachel and Tim Ollerenshaw’s eight-year-old daughter Molly from a rare kidney cancer and marked its tenth anniversary last year.

The charity supports children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. It helps with emotional support and donates wishes, therapeutic toys and books to children directly and through hospitals across the UK.

Rachel Ollerenshaw said: “What a great couple of nights at Warwick Spice. Steve Davis and Chris Lovell, a coach from World Snooker, were very entertaining, extremely personable and supportive of Molly Ollys.

“Steve has had such an interesting career and is clearly so passionate about snooker and the history of the game. Huge thanks to Hosoun and all the team at Warwick Spice for organising, Mike Rigby, Nash on sitar and the drummers who all helped to make a fun night and raise awareness for the Charity.”

Since Molly Ollys started more than £3 million has been raised to emotionally support children across the UK. Anyone wishing to donate can do so here

An English Earl is celebrating his Brazilian roots as part of an exciting new collaboration set to cause a stir in the world of cocktails.

William Seymour, Earl of Yarmouth, from Alcester, and Matthew Hiscoe, owner of Café Cocktail in Stratford-upon-Avon, have created a perfect blend by mixing their skills to create a unique drink using William’s internationally award-winning St Maur elderflower liqueur.

Lord Yarmouth, who counts among his ancestors Henry VIII’s wife Jane Seymour, is the eldest son of the Marquess of Hertford, from Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, his family’s seat since the 18^th century. Less well known is William’s Brazilian heritage, on his mother’s side.

William established the St Maur brand with his wife Kelsey after first producing a drink uniquely for guests on their wedding day. And now St Maur is the main focus for Café Cocktail’s Cocktail of the Week, from Wednesday 22nd March, in the form of the newly created Flor Antiga cocktail, a drink made using St Maur and Cachaça, a Brazilian spirit from the rum family. The ingredients and name – which means elderflower in Portuguese – were specially chosen to reflect William’s roots from both sides of his family. William has fond memories of living in Rio de Janeiro as a child.

Entrepreneur William said: “In this country people would be familiar with my family’s English heritage, and having been associated with Ragley Hall for much of my life, many people will assume I’m all very English. Actually I’m half Brazilian. It is a heritage to celebrate, especially with my own boys as they grow up in the heart of England.

“My Brazilian heritage is no less important than my English one. It’s part of who I am and I’m proud of it.  It opens the door to the world of an interesting and exciting culture.

“I vividly remember visiting Brazil as a youngster with the expectation of staying for an extended holiday of a couple of months, and then being told we were going to stay and live there!

“It was a huge culture shock at the age of seven seeing the stark contrast between being brought up in the English countryside and finding ourselves living in one of the most high-density population cities in the world with poverty literally right on your doorstep. That impression of poverty has stayed with me.”

Since opening Café Cocktail in Greenhill Street with his wife Ginnene and his mother Jill last summer, Matthew has been passionate about bringing his 20 years of hospitaliy experience, both as a Riyal Academy of Culinary Arts Specialised Chef graduate and as expert mixologist to help showcase local brands in his new cocktails.

Matthew said: “I’ve always had a passion for cocktails and my chef experience helps as there is actually huge crossover between the two disciplines. Once you understand flavours, provenance and balance, you can then apply this to your creations.

Matthew added: “We love St Maur. Elderflower liqueur is a really versatile ingredient for cocktails. Colloquially among cocktail bartenders elderflower liqueur has earned the moniker of bartender’s ketchup, as you can add a little bit to almost anything and it will taste great. That’s one reason why it’s so wonderful to have found something that’s of such high quality and local.

“I’m so happy to be working with William. What’s great is we genuinely love each other’s businesses. There are actually very few elderflower liqueurs on the market and there are even fewer good ones, so to find something great is fabulous. It’s a bartender’s dream to be able to find a good liqueur because they’re the heart and soul of so many cocktails.”

Described as ‘a little drop of England’s heart,’ St Maur has already earned William and Kelsey a number of prestigious industry awards, including Gold at the Global Spirits Awards in Las Vegas.

Flor Antiga is Café Cocktail’s Cocktail of The Week from Wednesday March 22^nd but is also available for a preview taste upon request, on Mother’s Day, on Friday, March 19^th.

And it is hoped the latest collaboration will lead to long-term partnering between the two south Warwickshire businesses.

William added: “It was fun playing around with variations of the cocktail until we landed on something we both liked. The Flor Antigas is something I’m really excited about. It’s fresh, it’s interesting and it offers a personal touch for me. It’s something I have a personal connection with and I’m proud of that connection.”

More about St Maur

From the recipe for the liqueur, to the designs on the label, and the name itself, St Maur brings together 1,000 years of heritage and family.

Provenance is core to the brand’s success. The map co-ordinates on the logo lead to Ladies Wood and an elder grove in the ancient Ragley Woodlands, now cared for by Earl of Yarmouth Estates. Here and in the hedgerows at their family farm in Alcester, in early summer, you’ll find the elderflowers being feverishly harvested by friends and family members.

There’s also a red-legged partridge on the bottle, a bird successfully introduced to England in the 19th century by an ancestor Francis Seymour, the 5th Marquess, and now the brand’s mascot.

St Maur is a contemporary liqueur made to be versatile, built around the same four components needed to make a cocktail – a base spirit, a sweet and sour element, flavour and look. It can be enjoyed with all kinds of cocktails, and long drinks, in a simple fizz with soda, tonic or ginger ale, ‘royale’ with champagne, on the rocks, or on its own.

Another £1,000 towards potentially life-saving equipment has been raised thanks to a new business networking event celebrating inspirational women last week.

Female achievers from across Warwickshire and the West Midlands took the spotlight for a special event celebrating Resilience and Diversity in aid of hotelier Sue Cressman’s ongoing fundraising for Birmingham hospitals.

The two-times cancer survivor, from Dorridge, who underwent a mastectomy ten years ago, has been continuing to give back by, so far, donating £250k worth of medical equipment. The latest donation will almost complete the funding for another LOCalizer, a state-of-the-art non-invasive hand-held scanner which can detect breast tumours.

Sue said: “After this wonderful event celebrating International Women’s Day, we are delighted to have raised £1,100 towards an essential piece of equipment for University Hospitals Birmingham for their Breast Cancer Units.

“The equipment called a LOCalizer enables consultant surgeons to pinpoint an exact tumour on a patient during an operation. This allows more accuracy and less trauma to the patient.”

Sue was among the inspirational guests at The Ladies First Networking & Personal Branding Development Day, which also included Hannah King-Page from Meriden who received a special Resilience Award.

Thirty-nine-year-old Hannah was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma brain tumour in October 2020 after suffering regular seizures. In November that year surgeons at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire managed to remove around half of the tumour and began a course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments.

The latest of her six-monthly scans have shown no regrowth and Hannah, a former specialist musculoskeletal and pain management physiotherapist, has gone on to marry her partner Andrew at Warwick Register Office who is supporting her through her continued battle.

Donations can be made to the Brain Tumour Association at: https://www.braintumourresearch.org/donation

Also speaking was Naomi Issit from Rugby. Naomi launched the Our Jay Foundation in memory of her 18-year-old son Jamie who died suddenly following a cardiac arrest on New Year’s Day last year. Since then she has raised more than £50k and installed 40 life-saving defibrillators.

The charity also offers CPR training events and guidance and has, just this month, launched an information app available for download.

Naomi said: “It was the most painful shock that any of us could ever feel. He was my right arm. The only way I can even try and get through the days is to work for him and keep on making sure that his face is seen and his name is said and that things change, because he deserved so much better. I know he would be proud of that.”

Find out more about the Our Jay Foundation at: https://www.ourjay.org.uk/

Other speakers on the day included May Parsons, the nurse who made history when she administered the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine on December 8^th 2020, in Coventry. Also Suzanne Linton, the co-founder of Freestyle digital innovation agency in Ashorne and the winner of the 40th Woman of the Year (Business) Award last year.

The event was organised by Director of Ladies First, Tracey McAtamney, who is herself no stranger to resilience.

The former Coventry Carnival Queen was widowed in her 30s and left as a single mum of two sons, when her husband suddenly dropped dead from an abdominal aneurism on a golfing holiday in Spain.

Some 15 years later, Tracey, from Balsall Common, joined a networking group – which she now runs – where she was encouraged to share her story for the first time. This opened the emotional floodgates and soon led to a book and the launch of a Foundation called Surviving Bereavement which offers legal, financial and emotional support for bereaved families. https://survivingbereavement.com/

She has also written a book about her journey called Hidden Strength, and completed her qualification as a Grief Recovery Specialist and is running busy Bereavement Cafes across the county.

She said: “I would like to express my thanks to everyone from within the Ladies First Community for making ‘our’ day such a success!

“It was both empowering and uplifting to have over 100 ladies gathered together creating a positive difference.  With everyone taking away tips and techniques on gaining confidence and inspirational stories.

“It was especially lovely to be able to honour Hannah King-Page, who shows daily strength and courage following a brain tumour diagnosis, with our first Ladies First International Women’s Day Award for Resilience. Hannah, who has set up her own Foundation to help others, received a standing ovation and applause throughout the marquee.

“It was also wonderful to raise more than £1,000 in support of Sue Cressman’s ongoing appeal to provide Breast Cancer Equipment for local hospitals.”