From John Fieldus, Director of Fundraising The Spinal Injuries Association, SIA. 1983-2011

The SIA is the national charity for people who have A Spinal Cord Injury, the services offered by SIA support their injured member and their families following their traumatic accident. The SIA was formed in 1974 by Baroness Masham following her spinal cord injury while competing at a point-to-point meeting.

I joined the SIA in 1982 after my diving accident. In 1983 I offered my marketing experience to the SIA to benefit SIA fundraising. I was appointed director of fundraising, a position I held from 1984 to 2011.

In 1986 the SIA was adopted by the highly respected bookmakers Coral, part of the Bass leisure group. We held an annual Coral sports ball at the Dorchester, and at the first ball in 1986, David was a guest of the late Malcolm Palmer, then director of public relations for Coral.

During the auction, David bought a lease of a horse called ‘One for the Chief’ trained by Richard and Liz Whitaker in Yorkshire. It was the start of a wonderful friendship between David and myself, which lasted until his death. When David was running his advertising firm Lewis Broadbent he kindly agreed that he would rebrand the SIA and came up with wonderful strapline “because life doesn’t stop when you’re paralysed”. David also, at no charge, designed and edited the SIA annual review.

David continued to support the SIA over the 30 years I ran the fundraising team, he was a great and enthusiastic supporter. Supporting all the charity race days, sports balls, and so many other events, always there to offer advice and financial support.
What a great friend, and because of this Liz, Lou and Maggi kindly offered that the SIA is nominated as a charity to benefit from donations in memory of David.