Campaigning 1978 to 2007.... A Life Of Community Involvement.
 | I started Campaigning to stop a housing development in Horam, East Sussex, which was on green belt land, and won the fight. Then it was to take on the Wealden District Council over our damp and sub standard home, which turned out also to be a lot more of the houses as well on the estate in Hailsham, East Sussex. We had a solicitor appointed, found his services next to useless, more of a hinderance than a help, but I won the fight without him, but after appealing, luckily with a bit of Royal help. We then got moved to Wadhurst, East Sussex, our choice of place to live.
After this it was to Campaign for Gas fires to be serviced every year, as we were paying for the gas fire servicing but not receiving it, which led to the fires to be serviced every 3 years or so by the Wealden District Council. This challenge was taken up by our MP Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith ( Wealden MP ), as known now all gas fires have to be serviced every year.
I was very involved in Neighbourhood Watch with my Wadhurst community, and this led to me developing and starting a mobile phone scheme.
I started campaigning across the Country to arm all postmen and women with Mobile Phones for community and security reasons, linked to their Neighbourhood Watch groups and their local Police forces. This brought my communities together, and added in a low cost security system. These new phone schemes were demonstrated to the Home Office, on my behalf, by Cellnet's PR company, Spreckley Pitham, and involved Crime Concern, it attracted many National newspaper & magazine interviews ( Country Living was one ) , filming with the BBC & Granada TV National & local crews. The BBC Archers programme contacted me as they wanted to write the mobile phone scheme into their radio series, followed by introducing it to the Postman Pat TV series as well (today Postman Pat has a mobile phone ). This phone scheme was really lifting off, mail from all round the Country from interested Posties, and excellent positive publicity for Royal Mail, but then Royal Mail decided after 2 years with the Conservative Government , it would like to try and privatise the mail service, the phone schemes would be in the way of a privatised sale, and during this period in 1989, my wife Sarah became seriously ill with Crohns and Ulcerated Colitis. I carried on working, but it was really hard, and I had a fight with Royal Mail to keep my local phone schemes going and help deal with a very ill wife, and cope with three young children. Most days on returning home from work you never knew what was going to be the state of my wife's health. Nearly every day there was an extra problem developing, and the pains she was going through were horrific. I resigned from Royal Mail as I was forced off my delivery round, luckily onto another which had a phone scheme running for a short while, but I felt I was letting my customers down, as the postie who took over my round did not want to do the phone scheme. (all political). Most Posties have mobile phones today.
Not being a person to give up, I decided to turn my skills to Campaigning for Crohns Sufferers, as my wife was one, and to find out the cause and why ? This started in 1996 and The Chronic Crohns Campaign was launched.(now The Chronic Crohns Campaign UK, known all over the World today).
I was still working full time, but changed to working at nights for 10 hour shifts at a time, 4 days a week, so this gave me more time to Campaign. This employer turned out to be non supportive, wages were stopped for a day, it simply snowed one night, I could not get to work, despite standing at a railway station for hours in the freezing cold, so enough was enough. I then got a local job, back in the car trade, but it was back to normal hours. When I got home the Campaigning had to start, and dealing with Crohns Sufferers and launching media enquires for stories to support my Campaigning, which resulted in many press articles and TV interviews ( listed in contents menu ) This local car trade job has ended because I simply could take no more of the abuse, toxic chemicals, and the very low wages, which were making this family fall more and more into debt. I had damaged my back through this local employer, been given a hiatus hernia, because of the conditions I had to work in, and had to work all day in very confined spaces without proper ventilation, or windows, and I was breathing in toxic fumes. I had asked the Health & Safety Executive for help, but none came. On the day I left the East Sussex Fire & Rescue visited the site, and found several problems, all relating to health & safety at work. Under the strain over coping with all these problems, it ended up with me at the doctors, with blood pressure through the roof, acute depression, and severe anxiety, amoungst other things. The strain was just too much, luckily I had my Crohns Campaign to try and focus on. We had no help from our local Council with paying for Rent & Council Tax, so we had to pay the full amounts which took half my very low wages, and left me very little for all the other service bills & extras we needed for my wife Sarah and the 3 children to survive on. This became my worst nightmare in the end, dragging me down.
In all this campaigning I have made some really good friends, the Crohns sufferers here in the UK, and around the World, my little group (team) within this Campaign and in all the Media, who I owe a great deal of thanks to, without them Crohns would still be very little heard of.
In 2002 after Campaigning to the Prime Minister I was asked to take part in the Government's Defra consultation process ,which after 2 years was finally released in September 2004 at Stonleign Park in Warwickshire.
The fund raising has to go on, we need the £185.000 for the DNA Crohns Vaccine @ St Georges Hospital in 2005.
Some people will only take their doctor's advice, which is fair enough, but I am so glad Sarah & I looked a bit wider. Thanks here goes to Mr Paul Taylor, who now looks after the TCCC.UK for Cumbria ( then TCCCUK - Warwickshire ), and is the person who showed us another way against Crohns, after reading our story in the Daily Mail by Martyn Halle, which was done with Action Medical Research and Prof.John Hermon-Taylor.
Due to the vast quantities of enquires and what I call junk mailings, I actually put Paul Taylor's letter to me, aside, and ignored it for 9 months. It was not until my wife Sarah was going to have to come off one of her drugs, 6Mercaptopurine, & the 5 years, that was all the time you were allowed to be on this drug at the time, was now up, that usually meant when she had a drug change, it was back in hospital again, so I went through all the "junk mailings" and found Paul Taylor's letter. I wrote back a very apologetic letter to him, and asked him to please send me the details on Aloe Vera, better than that, he actually sent me a litre of Aloe Vera for Sarah to start on, at no cost to us.
The combination of alternatives we used has helped not only my wife Sarah recover, but so many others are leading such better quality lives, due to correct nutrients ( Glyconutrients ) the 8 natural saccorides, or plant sugars, one of which we have all heard - Aloe Vera. These feed the immune system to work correctly, and to destroy the bad cells in the system which cause ill health. Aloe Vera helps the body absorb nutrients, so we believe the combination we have used is quite unique, this I raise awareness to, to help others who may be out there suffering as Sarah was, in severe pain, in deep depression, thinking there is no way out, except keep on taking the drugs, which after all only "hold" the problem, and often cause further side effects. After learning for 2 years about glyconutrients from Paul Taylor and another of his friends Mr Edgar Fleming , ( a relation of the Alexander Fleming ) we got together and decided to form another group - The Natural Health Campaign UK, which has written two books on the subject of Glyconutrients.
Sarah's success story (written up on this website in 2 parts ) is featured in both these books, and in another book called Aloe Vera Nature's Silent Healer by another good friend Alasdair Barcroft.
Updated in 2006..............
Today 1n 2006, my wife Sarah still has no sign or symptom of Crohns or Ulcerated Colitis. She does get tired from time to time, but this is to be expected after coming through all these years of hell. I am still Campaigning hard for Crohns, raising awareness to Sarah's Success Story to try and help others learn of this " other way " to tackle Crohns. Since the Aloe Book mentioned above, I have done many more newspaper, radio & TV interviews on Crohns and now on the New DNA Crohns Vaccine for January 2007, £700.000 of money permitting. Personally I get exhausted, but the Campaigning helps keep me focused from the the dark pit of depression at times, but for all those with Diabetes who know, the tiredness & exhaustion come with this illness too. The alarming thing to me is the number of new Crohns sufferers today, and the total lack of knowledge they are given by their doctors. My spirits are lifted, when I get a phonecall to say another is back on the road to recovery, the alternative medication has changed & given back another person quality in their lives, no more suffering ................brilliant !!!!!!!
What more can one say, really, it is having the trust & faith in what we are doing and have done, and understanding why these alternatives have made the difference. I was as sceptical as the next, those 4 + years ago, but knowing what Sarah was going through, I was determined to give her these alternatives to try, even if it meant her staying as she was, not going towards surgery, but my faith in 2 other human beings, Paul Taylor & Ed Fleming and the science I had read, some Paul had sent me, paid off, and Sarah & I have never looked back, only to remember what we had done along this road of success.
If any of you reading this want to phone me to talk about any of this please do, that is why I am here, also here to help you or your partner or your family. Do not suffer in silence and then wish you had spoken to me. I am not here to sell you anything, and my time is free to you, to listen or help, or advise you.
At the end of 2006, as I sit here typing this on New Year's eve @ 23.45pm, with the knowledge £150.000 was raised last year, from the £700.000 we need to raise, and the fact we have now £550.000 to go, to get the New DNA Crohns Vaccine to manufacture, it is a daunting thought, but I thought this 10 years ago when I first started Campaigning, with the Funds we needed to help the Prof JHT, and to date we have raised £1.5 million, to get this far. Please keep the money rolling in for us, for you all, we will get there of that I am determined.
Take care, and I look foward to hearing from you sometime,
Regards and Best Wishes,
Tim Page - TCCC.UK
I hope this has been worth reading, it shows a small insight into my side of the story so far.............Tim Page.
P.S. I use some of the alternatives now we used with Sarah on myself, to help with some of my health problems.
EMail : - Tim Page @ tccc.uk@btinternet.com
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