Celebrity writer and comedian Griff Rhys Jones gave one boy a very special day as he invited him to his Suffolk home to meet his alpacas.
Mr Rhys Jones, who famously wrote and appeared in sketches for Not The Nine O’clock News, recently finished a world stand-up tour and will be performing a special gig in December for the East Anglian Children’s Hospice (EACH).
In the run up to the show, the comedian invited 11-year-old Oliver Thomas, with his dad Bryn, 49, and mum Angela, 46, to meet Fairmount, Heskey and the rest of his beautiful black alpacas.
Oliver lives with severe mental and physical disabilities resulting from a rare chromosomal abnormality and EACH provides vital respite care for his parents.
As patron of the hospice, Mr Rhys Jones spoke passionately about EACH and the work they do.
He said: “EACH are fantastic, they are all about life and if you have a short amount of time left they are about making the most of it.
“If you are a TV personality or whatever I am you get asked to do a lot of charity things but sometimes we can be a bit divorced from what we are supposed to be promoting.
“The work EACH do is so brilliant and skilful and this is a local charity, it’s not a national charity where you don’t know where the money is going.”
He continued: “I wanted Oliver to come here and meet the alpacas because they are such life enhancing creatures.”
Oliver spent a wonderful day meeting the alpacas and even got to feed Fairmount apples and carrots.
Mr Thomas, Oliver’s Dad, couldn’t speak more highly of EACH and Mr Rhys Jones for all their work.
He said: “This means a lot to us and Oliver, you can see how much he’s enjoyed the animals here today. Anything sensory is important for children like Oliver and that’s something EACH are very aware of.”
Mr Rhys Jones will take part in the charity gig on December 16 at the Bobby Robson suite, located inside the Portman Road stadium.
His 90-minute show will cover new material from his many travels with all proceeds going to EACH, helping them to raise some of the £10million needed to run their centres each year.
Lesa Barker, the fundraising manager at EACH said: “People like Griff are always busy so for him to give up his time is so valuable.
“This is a real opportunity for us because there is no expenditure, only income.
“We only get 18% of our income from the government and we have to raise £10 million a year to run our centres.”
Tickets for the gig cost £29.50 and available online until Friday, December 14 or until sold out.
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