Scooter Grannies: Irlam dad’s wacky fancy dress fundraiser for daughter with cerebral palsy

Seven Greater Manchester men are preparing for a fund-raising scooter ride dressed as grandmothers to raise money for a girl with cerebral palsy.

The Scooter Grannies, as they have been dubbed, are made up of Irlam dad Darren Bailey and a group of close friends who all don blouses, skirts and cardigans to push children’s scooters across the North West.

This year will be their fifth ride and they are planning to scoot from Preston North End FC to Blackpool town centre.

The funds raised will help to pay for the specialist physiotherapy and equipment that Darren’s 11-year-old daughter Freya needs.

How did the Scooter Grannies come together to start fund-raising?

Darren, who works as a water engineer, came up with the idea for the Scooter Grannies back in 2016 when he was looking to get money together to help his daughter Freya.

Freya was born with two holes in her heart and also has cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

Darren found out about a type of surgery Freya could have which would reduce the amount of pain she was in on a daily basis by up to 65% but it cost £16,000.

Darren, 50, said: “Originally I was thinking of some kind of event with us dressed as superheroes but my friend Olive, who is 80, said: ‘Everyone does that, why not dress as grannies?’

“So I took myself to the charity shop, bought some outfits and Scooter Grannies was born.”

Since then the fund-raising has continued as Freya needs specialist physiotherapy which comes with a bill of around £1,000 per month so she can continue doing activities she enjoys, including swimming and riding her trike.

What is the Scooter Grannies event for 2022?

This year the Scooter Grannies will be riding from Preston North End’s Deepdale football ground to the middle of Blackpool.

The event takes place on 25 June and Darren expects it will take them around four hours to cover the distance.

The core of the fund-raising involves 20 local businesses who act as sponsors and who between them will contribute around £4,800 - enough to provide around six months of physiotherapy for Freya.

This year the Scooter Grannies are also hoping to be granted a street collection licence so they can raise even more money along the way and in Blackpool at the end.

Darren said: “We will be stopping and shaking those donation tins and buckets in and around Blackpool town entre.

“As grannies we might even find time for a bit of knitting on the sea front.”

In previous years the team has scooted from Irlam to Blackpool (a distance of 56 miles done over a weekend), Irlam to Chester, done a gruelling cross-Pennine, 30-mile trek from Huddersfield to Irlam which Darren says was the toughest challenge to date and covered the distance between the two iconic football stadiums Anfield in Liverpool and Old Trafford in Manchester.

Charity Tree of Hope, which helps children with rare diseases to have a better quality of life through operations and treatments not available on the NHS, has set up a fund-raising page for Freya which can be visited here.

What has Darren said about the Scooter Grannies challenges?

Darren described the constant need to bring in enough money to provide the treatments, support and specialised equipment that Freya needs to remain mobile and enjoy her hobbies.

He said: “Freya has three sessions of physiotherapy a week and the need for that will be ongoing into adulthood. Each session is £90, so that’s £270 a week and almost £1,000 a month.

“Her off-road buggy so we can go for walks in the woods cost £3,000. She has standing frames, specialist bathing equipment. She rides a tricycle and that was £2,000. She’s been rock climbing, she loves swimming. She’s even been on one of those trampolines with a bungee where you sit in harnesses. She’s a character.

“She’s nearly 12 now and will be wanting more independence, so I’m keen to get her an electric wheelchair but that can be anything from £12,000 to £20,000.

“It’s a whirlwind. We were doing lots of different fund-raisers in between looking after Freya and working full time, but it got too much so now we concentrate on the scooter run every year.

“Freya has defied everyone in terms of what they expected. They didn’t think she would come out of intensive care when she was born, but she has just fought and fought and fought.

“As a father you feel like you have no other option, it pulls at your heart strings. I want her to have as normal a life as possible and experience all the pleasures a child can have, just simple things like riding a bike and going to the swimming baths.

“There is no cure for cerebral palsy, no magic wand, just a family’s resilience against the odds to raise the funds trying to give Freya the best they can.”

What else has been said about the fund-raising?

Gill Gibb, CEO of Tree of Hope, said: “We’re delighted to be helping with Freya’s fund-raising and Scooter Grannies is certainly an innovative event! We wish Darren all the best with it.”