Young Engel lives on in the memory
Matthew Engel, the editor of Wisden, and his wife Hilary have launched a charity in honour of their son, who died of cancer last year aged 13
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Matthew Engel, the editor of Wisden, and his wife Hilary have launched a charity in honour of their son, who died of cancer last year aged 13. The Laurie Engel Fund aims to help rebuild the cancer ward at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The Telegraph’s Robert Philip listens to Matthew talk movingly about the need for a new ward, his recollections of Laurie and about a campaign which has already had pledges from Chelsea FC and a promise from Bunbury Cricket Club to stage a cricket match.
"The oncology - a word I had never previously encountered, even in Scrabble - ward is a so-called modern wing of a Victorian hospital," Matthew explains. "It was built circa 1990 when the National Health Service had no money and it's a really cheap and nasty job which everybody hates.”
Read the original, heartbreaking article relating to Laurie's death here.
A subsequent letter to The Guardian sums up the article perfectly.
The warmth and tenderness he so evidently felt for his cherished son was conveyed with a poignancy beyond measure. Somehow, he managed to combine this intimacy with a description of clinical detail that made my head reel. And yet, as he and his family clearly did not ask for sympathy in their darkest hour, not once was it solicited in his writing. Quite remarkable, and quite humbling.