TEARS OF JOY

THE ASPACE centre for handicapped children was the setting for the extremely emotional presentation of 23 specially designed wheelchairs and a host of other items which will either improve or make life easier for a large number of handicapped, some severely, local children. The tears of joy which streamed down the cheeks of parents and the smiles and screams of excitement on the faces of the children were thanks to British resident Robert Winsor, whose second celebrity charity golf tournament, sponsored by CERXnet, last May, raised nearly eleven million pesetas for the charity Los Niños Sin Hogar. Apart from the wheelchairs (some including specialist walking frames), which were given to children at the Centro Mater Misericordia and the Association of Mothers of handicapped Children in the Balearics (AMADIBA), an Oxford Dipper swimming pool crane has also been installed at the ASPACE centre along with a televideo and music system and a complete set of games room equipment. This year there were also two special presentations, one to Ricardo Galas Gonzales in Bilbao and another to Salvador Vicens Guillen who travelled over with his parents from Minorca to collect his special power wheelchair. The story of Salvador is a tragic one. A serious traffic accident along the motorway to the airport completely changed the twenty-year-old's life, but thanks to a chance meeting with Robert Winsor's wife in a Majorcan supermarket, Salvador is now the extremely proud owner of a power wheelchair which he took for a test spin yesterday shouting “danger, danger” to the amusement of everybody at the presentation. All the British celebrities who took part in the tournament are as equally pleased with the record amount of money raised and how they have played a part in helping to improve the lives of dozens of handicapped children. This year's tournament featured the likes of Jasper Carrott, Brian Close CBE, Willie Thorne, Terry Mancini, back for the second year along with Peter Stringfellow, Mike England, Joe Goodman and many more including patron of the Los Niños Sin Hogar, Princess Birgitta of Sweden.