FORMER Simple Minds stars are to front a charity concert in aid of Maggie's cancer care centres.
FORMER Simple Minds stars are to front a charity concert in aid of Maggie's cancer care centres.
Mick MacNeill and Derek Forbes, now of Scottish group fourgoodmen, are lending their support to the event to raise vital funds.
Normally used to performing in front of thousands of fans, they will be playing an intimate gig in Bearsden Burgh Hall.
The band agreed to perform after a chance meeting with fundraiser and former cancer sufferer Cath Howden.
She used the phone book to find a number for a studio to record a charity track and picked Mick's.
Cath, who has three children, said: "My daughter Sarah and her pal Katie were looking for somewhere to record a charity CD in aid of the Ayrshire Hospice and Maggie's. We went along to Mick's and everything steamrollered from there.
"I mentioned I was putting together a charity concert and they offered to step in."
Derek said they were delighted to help.
He said: "It is an honour to lend a hand to one of the UK's top cancer carer centres."
Cath, 46, was diagnosed in January 2005, but she had first become aware of a lump like a pea on her left breast in autumn 2004.
She has been in remission for 16 months, but has never forgotten the help and support she received from the Maggie's Centre, which is based at the Gatehouse near the Western Infirmary, Glasgow.
The money raised from the gig will go towards opening a second Maggie's Centre in the city. The first was built five years ago after Evening Times readers raised £1.2million towards the cost.
The new £2.1m centre will be built at Gartnavel Hospital, close to the Beatson Oncology Centre, which sees about 8000 new patients a year and where staff administer more than 20,000 courses of chemotherapy.
Cath, from Bearsden, said: "The medical treatment I received was wonderful, but when I left the hospital there was always something I needed an answer to and Maggie's was there for just that.
"It is a place you can go for relaxation and I even took my teenage daughter along. In some way I think it reassured her about what I was going through.
"Now Maggie's is campaigning to build another centre and I want to help in whatever way I can so others can benefit."
Cath is working on various fundraising events and plans to run the Glasgow Women's 10k in May with a team from Clober Primary, Milngavie, where she is a classroom assistant.
The gig at Bearsden Burgh Hall is on March 14 and will also feature ceilidh band Skerryvore.
Tickets, £15, from www.ticketscotland.co.uk.
