6Providing Good Days for people in Essex with life limiting illnesses and Scholarships to help dedicated young musicians and sports people achieve their goals.

It’s a huge honour for me to have been asked to be patron of the David Randall Foundation.

Arkle and I grew up opening the batting together at Essex age group cricket and at Maldon CC. I will never be embarrassed to say that David was a far better player than me! We had some great moments together and I will never forget the time when we beat Bury St. Edmunds by 10 wickets on a fantastic day at Drapers Farm.

Arkle handled his illness with great bravery and never once did we hear him complain, or say “Why me?” He tried to live as normal a life as possible, refusing to give to the illness and striving to experience as much as he could in his last few months. I think the fact that he came to Lords and visited Wimbledon in his last few weeks summed up his attitude.

The David Randall Foundation  gives those with life limiting illnesses the opportunity to live life to the full, for as long as possible and  encourages dedicated sports people and musicians  restrained by financial means, to pursue their ambitions. So please support this great cause as generously as you can to enable us to improve the quality of many people’s lives and give them opportunities they would not have otherwise had, in honour of a very special guy.

I hope we can all make David very proud of us.

All the best

Cooky

Alastair Cook CBE: England’s Highest Ever Run Scorer