Family

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor As the old saying goes, March is a month without mercy. March is also Brain Tumour Awareness Month. And one particular type of brain tumour – a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma – is one without any mercy at all. Indeed, it will take the life of the child who has the terrible misfortune to suffer this incurable, inoperable and terribly debilitating illness. The name itself is challenging. Basically, it is a cancerous tumour in the...

By Nicky Goulder, co-founder and Chief Executive of Create The official figures from the latest Census show that there are 400 identified children who are providing unpaid care in the London borough of Westminster. These children are known as ‘young carers’, defined by the Carers Trust as ‘children who often take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that would normally be expected of an adult’. These children can end up in a situation in which they are spending 50 hours...

By Steve Taggart Surprised visitors and commuters across the UK had to double take at the sudden appearance of strange gift-wrapped figures on the street as they made their way into some of England's major cities. The festive figures, which appeared overnight in Liverpool, London and Brighton, were actually iconic statues beautifully gift-wrapped as part of ‘People for Presents’ - a new campaign by  giffgaff that encourages people to put their phones down this Christmas and give the gift of...

Christmas is traditionally a time spent celebrating with friends and family, exchanging gifts and having fun. For the 500,000 older people expected to spend Christmas alone, however, Christmas isn’t such a joyful occasion. Loneliness is a growing issue for the older population - at Christmas and all year round. Last year Friends of the Elderly launched its Future of Loneliness report, which found that over five million older people in the UK are affected by loneliness, with more than a million...

The New Year can be an expensive time, especially if you’ve overspent during the festive period. It’s also the time of year when many of us put in place resolutions to change our lives. If you want to start lowering your energy usage in the New Year, either to save money or reduce your impact on the environment, the expert team at Pump Sales Direct have a few simple tips to help you.   1. Switch Off One of the...

By Nathan Lee, TLE Correspondent  New research has revealed the top 50 signs that you're a competitive mum. Queueing up to get the front seats for the school play, always winning the ‘mums race’ on sports day and producing ‘Bake Off’ standard cakes for the fair are just some of the ways competitive mums try to impress, the study found. Other ways mums try to ‘get-one-up’ on the opposition include making sure the children have all the latest technology and...

With Halloween fast approaching, millions of Britons are preparing how they’ll spend the holiday. It is great news for retailers all over the country with Brits set to spend a mind-blowing £466m in British stores, surpassing the £442m amount set last year. Figures collated by voucherbox.co.uk  indicate that last year, people in Britain spent £148m on Halloween costumes and clothing. This year, the figure is set to rise to over £157m, with that being able to dress approximately 3.4m families...

By Mindy Gibbins-Klein Ask any young person what they want to be when they grow up and they will tell you ‘doctor’, ‘lawyer’, ‘footballer’, ‘pop star’ or something similar. It is very unlikely they would say ‘I want to be a leader’ and even less likely they would aspire to be a ‘thought leader’. They probably have never even heard the term. Leadership is seen as something for older, experienced business professionals. But lately young people are being exposed to...

By Jasmine Stephens, Family Editor Millions of children's feet are being damaged by ill-fitting shoes according to barefoot shoes pioneer Vivobarefoot. Supported by medical professionals and parents, the shoe brand is launching a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of conventional footwear design on a child's natural foot development. Until the age of ten, the bones in a child's foot are soft and in a matter of weeks their foot development can be compromised simply by wearing poorly-fitting shoes....