As you may have seen we’ve been on a mission this week to raise £5,000 towards our Gig Buddies project through the Big Christmas Challenge, where donations get doubled for one week only!

Then out of the blue I got a lovely email from Michelle, Rita and Andy (the sister, mum and brother in law). The wanted us to know they’d donated £1500 in memory of Stephen Hampson who lived with his parents in Buckley, North Wales.

Sadly Stephen died in Jan 2018 but they wanted to do something to remember him by, and as Stephen loved loved music, gigs, parties, going out and staying up late they thought of us!

Here’s a little bit more about Stephen:

‘Stephen was a born music lover. He took his tape recorder everywhere and would make his own recordings of gigs, hymns being sung in church, buskers and family sing alongs.

His favourite musicians were Elvis, The Beatles and Abba. He liked musicals, novelty songs and brass band music too and was a big fan of playing songs on repeat!

Christmas songs would start being played in July because why should they just be for Christmas? There was nothing Stephen loved more than going out and socialising. He used to enjoy going to community events and youth clubs. He used to go for weekends to Liverpool with his sister and brother in law where he loved going to the Cavern Club and staying up late to party.

Stephen always loved to be the last person on the dance floor and to enjoy every last minute and with the help of his family and friends, he was able to do that! Stephen would want that for other party animals like him!’

Thank you Michelle, Rita and Andy and hats off to Stephen who sounded like he knew how to party and Stay Up Late.

We’re incredibly touched that you thought of us and we’ll make sure we put your donation to good use.

Paul and all the team at Stay Up Late