Courage of a young curler

Young people never fail to surprise me - usually in the best of ways. You may not know a young curler called Allister Boyd, but he, and his family, are going through the roughest of times. You should read his story which was published in last Friday's Ayrshire Post here.

Now, check out the shirt in the photo above. It's travelling the country this week to gather the signatures of ALL Scotland's World and Olympic champion curlers. It has some names on it already - Jackie Lockhart, Rhona Martin, David Murdoch for starters. Chuck Hay's 1967 rink are being added. So too are David Smith's and Hammy McMillan's sides. When complete it will be auctioned for Allister's nominated charities, the CLIC Sargent and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Already a bid of £500 has been received for this unique piece of kit! Can you do better? If so, contact Rhona Martin at Cairnie House - her email can be found here. Fax and telephone is here.

Of course you could just make a donation directly to the two charities mentioned above. There are multiple ways to do this.

The CLIC Sargent website is here.

The Teenage Cancer Trust funded a six bed ward for teenagers and young adults at the Beatson in Glasgow and this was opened in 2007. You can find that story here.

My best wishes to Allister and his family.