A letter from Freddie Fuller

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m writing to say thank you for your support with my fundraising effort a couple of months ago, which raised a total of £11,362.00. This is an amazing amount in such a short time and we are overwhelmed by your generosity.

I completed the piano playing on Tuesday 9th June with the help of my brother Ben and an old school friend, Julian Harvie. Having set out, sleepy-eyed, coffee in hand, at Leadenhall Market at 6am, it took us eleven and a half hours to make our way round the 31 pianos, finally ending up at the Natural History Museum at 5.30pm, bleary-eyed, gin and tonic in hand.

We had an interesting start, with a lone drunk lying next to the beer-stained piano in the middle of the green; he wasn’t too happy that we had interrupted his hangover at such an hour and we didn’t stay for too long to ask if he had any spare change. After such an insalubrious start we aimed to trot round the rest of the City’s 15 pianos by midday, casually interrupting people’s breakfasts and, at one point, early morning mass; Jonathan and Penny Marland very kindly lent us a car and driver for the morning which made a huge difference to our progress.

The City completed, it was now the rest of London’s turn to be slowly woken up by three teenagers shaking buckets in its face and, with my helpers’ merry, if persistent, if irritating, if infuriating demeanour, we managed to raise over £150 on the day.

Unfortunately, we were forced to miss out one piano since it had mysteriously disappeared at some point earlier that week; no one, including the London Authorities, could locate it so we had to move on. I think they saw us coming.

By midday, we were making our way around London on public transport or on foot, slowing us down considerably. However, we made our final mad piano-based dash to the Natural History Museum at the end of the afternoon to be greeted by a group of friends and relatives who endeavoured to help us celebrate / stand up straight.

I want to thank you again for being so generous. All of the money raised is going to The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign, a charity I wish to support as my mother is being treated at the hospital. I know that my parents are extremely grateful to you all as well.

With all my love and thanks,

Freddie Fuller