Preston couple who do everything together - including being diagnosed with cancer - raise £4.000 at Ruby Wedding

Phil and Elaine Etienne from Preston held their celebration at BAE Systems’ Canberra Club in Samlesbury for 140 guests, among them their grown-up daughters Natasha and Zoe.

They decided to turn the event into a fundraiser for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation after both receiving treatment there, and raised more than £4,000.

Phil and Elaine’s story

Both Phil and Elaine were BAE employees until their recent retirements. They worked on the same manufacturing shift together in the same room at the

Samlesbury plant for 20 years although Elaine had been employed there for 13 years prior while Phil was based at the company’s Strand

Road site in Preston.

But home and work aren’t the only things the couple have had in common.

They married at St Teresa’s RC Church in Preston in 1982 just a year after they first met through mutual friends.

Back then, when Phil was 20 and Elaine 19, it was a shared love of music and dancing at the likes of Standish’s Cassinelli’s and the city’s Snooty’s and

Squires that helped their relationship grow.

More recently, it has been helping one another through cancer and its treatment.

Cancer

Phil became unwell in October 2015 and a few weeks later on New Year’s Eve was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A month earlier, Elaine’s routine mammogram had detected breast cancer. It meant that both found themselves undergoing treatment at the same time – Elaine a lumpectomy followed by radiotherapy at Rosemere Cancer Centre and Phil, chemotherapy.

Elaine said: “Our daughters really stepped up to help us. They were fantastic taking us to appointments and doing a lot of running around for us. We vowed then if we made it to our ruby wedding anniversary, we’d have a big party for family and friends with music from the 80s that would also raise funds for Rosemere Cancer Foundation.”

The anniversary

The couple, who share hobbies of walking, gardening and traveling, asked their guests not to give them gifts but rather to buy a ticket priced at £5 for

their ‘do’, which they put to their total donation.

It was boosted by takings from on-the-night raffles, an auction, games, cake sale and tombola for which guests had also gifted prizes plus, a £150

donation from Chorley’s Handleys Bakery, a business which belongs to daughter Natasha’s partner Mike’s family.

Elaine added: “It was a great night compered by Zoe’s friend Adam Bully. We had supper, DJ Des Grant played great music and we also had singer

Charlotte Day perform.

"Thank you to everyone who made it so special for us and extra thanks to Pam Wilson, a lifelong friend, who helped us with the party’s organisation.”

What does Rosemere Cancer Foundation do?

Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world-class cancer treatments and services to patients from throughout Lancashire and South

Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, which is the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston

Hospital, and also at another eight local hospital cancer units.

The charity funds cutting-edge equipment, clinical research, staff training and innovative services and initiatives that the NHS cannot afford in order to make

patients’ cancer journey more effective, comfortable and stress-free.

For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk