Carlton Main Frickley Colliery recently performed in a special birthday concert to raise money to support Wakefield Hospice and a brave young girl with a rare kidney disease.

Different birthday

Organised by Gordon Spedding, the 'Last Night at the Proms' event was also a very different way for him to celebrate his 65th birthday. Gordon is an avid brass band fan and his daughter Anna plays flugel with the reigning Yorkshire Area Champion.

He arranged for the band and Outwood singer Suzi Saperia to play at an outdoor concert for his friends and family last weekend following his landmark birthday, but decided to also use the occasion to raise money for causes close to his heart.

Wonderful charities

Gordon told 4BR: "After all the hard work organising things I thought I might as well open it to the public and raise money for some wonderful charities such as Wakefield Hospice, which undertakes fantastic work."

He also chose to support his young neighbour Abi Longfellow (above), aged just 12, who suffers from Dense Deposit Disease, which stops her kidneys from filtering waste from her blood.

Support

Health bosses will not pay for the £393,000 Eculizumab drug she needs because Abi's condition is too rare to be covered by the national funding policy, but not rare enough to qualify as an exceptional case.

Gordon knew Abi was poorly and as soon as he knew the full extent of her condition, he wanted to help fundraise for the drug.

After all the hard work organising things I thought I might as well open it to the public and raise money for some wonderful charities such as Wakefield Hospice, which undertakes fantastic workGordon Spedding

Root shirt

The free proms event was a wonderful success, with prizes for lucky raffle ticket winners that included a signed original test shirt donated by Yorkshire's world ranked number 1 batsman, Joe Root and his Ashes winning England team mates.