From the West Country – A generous Christmas offer to help the ME Association

November 16, 2020


Tony Britton, PR & Fundraising Manager, ME Association

From the West Country comes a Christmas offer to help the ME Association – a set of beautiful cards you’d be more than pleased to send to your nearest and dearest.  

Emma Roberts with her son, George

Emma Roberts, a former NHS high-flyer whose life changed completely when her 13-year-old son became ill with M.E., has been inspired by her new home farm floristry business to sell cards that glow with yuletide colour.  

“They’ve been kindly painted by a family friend and feature our home-grown seasonal flowers and foliage.

They’ve been designed specifically to raise awareness of and funds for the ME Association.  I’ll be sending the charity £2.50 from the sale of each pack…” 

George was diagnosed with M.E. at the age of eight ­– after going into hospital with a nasty bout of glandular fever. “After that, our bouncy, mischievous football-loving son never really recovered”, said Emma. “The past few years have been very up and down.  

“George started secondary school two years ago using his electric wheelchair, which was really isolating and meant making friends was so hard. Nowadays, he’s in school between 9 and 12  five days a week, although sometimes he doesn’t make it in every day.”

Emma has a rather different take on the pandemic to most of us.  

“I have to say that the changes brought about by the pandemic have been really instrumental in improving George's ability to attend school.

George with ‘Treacle'

“The year group is in a bubble and the children have to stay put in the classroom during the day, while their teachers do all the walking round between lessons. 

“This has reduced significantly the energy drain for George and means he can concentrate on making friends. 

“He’s been much more stable over the last few months and has been able to use his wheelchair as a backup at school”. 

Emma rented a plot of land next to the family home in Atworth, Wiltshire, a little under a year ago. She grows a great profusion of flowers and other plants there for her new one-woman business, The Flower Studio

You name it, she grows it. She's sprouted a whole set of green fingers in the course of the last year.

Initially, she started selling to friends and neighbours. Now she is hoping to move into mail order and seeing her business grow to become sustainable. If things go well, she might rent a bigger plot next year.

“If you had asked me a couple of years ago when I was knee deep in NHS management if I had ever imagined that I would become a gardener and a florist, I'd have said ‘Never in a million years'!” I’m so grateful to have found a business which complements being able to concentrate on George.”

  • To order Christmas cards from Emma, please visit the Flower Studio Shop and £2.50 from each sale will be donated to the ME Association. The cards were designed by family friend Gabrielle Malcolm.

The ME Association

Please support our vital work

We are a national charity working hard to make the UK a better place for people whose lives have been devastated by an often-misunderstood neurological disease.

If you would like to support our efforts and ensure we are able to inform, support, campaign, and invest in biomedical research, then please donate today.

Just click the image opposite or click here for one-off donations or to establish a regular payment.

You can even establish your own fundraising event on JustGiving.

Or why not join the ME Association as a member and be part of our growing community? For a monthly (or annual) subscription you will also receive ME Essential – quite simply the best M.E. magazine!


ME Association Registered Charity Number 801279


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