Cancer counselling charity We Hear You (WHY) has been named 2020 Charity of the Year at the Bath Life Awards.

The awards ceremony took place yesterday (Thursday 27th February) at the Assembly Rooms in Bath, with award categories for a wide variety of services and activities celebrating the best of the city.

Fundraising and Communications Manager Gemma Wilkes (pictured left) said: "We were delighted just to be finalists in the Charity of the Year category, in an extremely strong field along with many of our third sector friends and colleagues – obviously we're even more delighted to win.

Our founder Jill Miller installed a second phone line in her living room in 1994 to try to help women who, like her, had been diagnosed with breast cancer and found that there was insufficient emotional support available.

Fast forward 25 years and WHY offers more than 115 counselling sessions every single week across B&NES, Somerset and Wiltshire, to anyone affected by any type of cancer or life threatening condition.

Jill saw her original idea turn into a truly amazing organisation, which she led until her retirement in 2008. Sadly Jill died in October 2019 but she would have been thrilled by this award and definitely the life and soul of the very glitzy after party. We're proud to continue Jill's legacy – this award will help WHY to grow and reach even more people in need of our support.

Thanks so much to Bath Life Awards, the category sponsors Stone King LLP and congratulations to all the fantastic nominees, we're proud and privileged to work with you to create a better and more compassionate BANES."

To find out more about We Hear You's services for people affected by cancer and life threatening conditions, please see www.wehearyou.org.uk, call 01373 455255 or email [email protected].

It is some good news for the charity who discovered yesterday that one of its collection tins had been stolen from outside one of its counselling sessions at the Town Hall.

Full story of the theft under the Red Button.