A big thank you to all those who helped raise charity cash

Firstly this week, I must mention the charity lunch I invited you all to a few weeks ago writes Emma Suddaby.

Despite the terrific monsoon howling all around us as we ate our lunch, fearing the marquee was about to lift off and take us on a magic-carpet ride, wallets were raided and pockets were emptied to the tune of around £5,000, with half going to the Severn Hospice and the other half to the Oswestry Rheumatology Association.

And let me tell you, £2,500 is not to be sneezed at.

So a big thank you goes out to all who came and spent their time and money, and an even bigger thanks to my friend, Gilly Owen, who was inspired to do something to help after visiting me in hospital.

Most people have no idea what RA can be like because no-one sees sufferers when we’re ill. But Gilly did and it was enough to inspire her to help, and being something of a force of nature, that help brought in £2,500. Big thanks to all involved.

And talking disability, fantastic to see Martine Wright doing so well in the news this week. Martine was the last casualty pulled out of the Aldgate Tube Station alive after the terrorist bombings in 2005. She lost both legs above the knee, most of her right arm and much of her hearing too.

In 2006, we both applied for a flying scholarship from the brilliant charity Flying Scholarships for Disabled People and found ourselves at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire going through the tough selection process together.

As fate would have it, we were both awarded full scholarships but in different locations, so I didn’t see Martine again but followed her mono-skiing in Switzerland, pregnancy and the miraculous birth of her children with pleasure and it was therefore no surprise to see her hitting the headlines again with her latest passion, sitting volleyball.

Martine has just been picked for the Paralympic team and will compete for her country next month.

It’s hard to miss the poetic justice in her single-minded determination and achievements, too. The day after the Aldgate bombing, it was announced that London would host the games in 2012.

Since then, Martine firstly survived her horrific injuries, then battled through rehab, learning how to walk on two prosthetic legs. She learnt to fly, how to ski and despite being maimed by another human being, how to love again – somehow finding the courage to take on motherhood.

Then she threw the legs away and literally learned to drag herself around a volleyball court on her hands, and has now been selected to represent her country in the very Games announced just the day after she nearly died.

And if that isn’t two British fingers up to those who commit such atrocities, I don’t know what is.

It takes more than a few bombs to keep us down, and don’t forget it!