River City star Leah MacRae is backing a campaign to get Gary Barlow to sing at the 40th birthday party of a Perthshire double liver transplant and cancer survivor.
Organ donation is close to the actress’s heart as a close friend is waiting for a life-saving lung transplant.
Now the 31-year-old actress, who plays Ellie in the Glasgow soap, is supporting Claire Riley’s Twitter campaign to get the Take That frontman to sing at the Scone mother-of-two’s party.
PLEASE TWEET! Get @GaryBarlow to sing at double liver transplant mum Claire's 40th – #clairewantsgary27aug pic.twitter.com/G0MCPBvzrB
— Yummymummybeauty (@ElaineHunter1) August 22, 2016
“It would be incredible for her after all she’s been through to have this dream come true,” she said.
Take That fan Claire thanked Leah for backing her campaign.
She said: “It’s amazing that people are getting behind me and I just can’t thank everyone enough.
“When Gary started doing people’s milestone birthdays, I thought that if I pulled through my transplant and was well enough, I would see if he could come and sing at mine.
Nice one @GaryBarlow see ya there then ? #milestonebirthday #clairewantsgary27aug ? pic.twitter.com/WKjrACtDH7
— Just minding my own! (@LisaCardno1) August 15, 2016
“So my friends started the campaign in May and it’s been growing arms and legs since then, with lots of local people getting involved.”
Claire said the campaign had proved to be great fun so far.
“We got a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Gary and have been taking him all over Perthshire,” she said.
“So far he’s been to Scone Palace, Rodney Gardens, the site of the Rewind concert and we’ve got plans to take him hill-walking.”
Claire’s first liver transplant came in 2004 when she was 28 when she was just two weeks away from death.
She explained: “I didn’t know that at the time, thankfully, but I was very ill and was put on the European register because I had only weeks left to live. The first transplant was the hardest I think, even though it was before I had the children.”
She had suffered from an ulcerated colitis which led to irreparable damage to her liver.
Claire and husband Dave went on to have sons Harrison, 10, and Blair, 6, and lived life to the full.
But then in 2011, Claire had further problems with her bowel and had surgery to remove cancerous cells but this damage had also affected her new liver.
In November 2013, she went back on the donor register.
She said: “I was steadily getting worse as my liver was failing and after two years, I was back in hospital. I was steadily getting worse; looking yellow and feeling exhausted.
“I had a spell in hospital around Christmas of last year and was getting worse. Then I got the news early this year that I was getting another transplant.
“I know that I am lucky and fortunate that organ donation exists.
“It is the most amazing gift of life.”
Best friend Lisa Cardno, who has been heading the campaign, said: “This year Claire turns 40 which is remarkable considering the odds of not making it to her 30th birthday.”
The Twitter campaign is #clairewantsgary27aug and needs to be tagged @garybarlow.
The campaign will be hoping to emulate the success of Dundee woman Jill Campbell, who succeeded in getting the singing star to her 30th birthday party in May.
