Posthumous honour for ‘hero’ fundraiser Bonny after £230k Marie Curie support

Posthumous honour for ‘hero’ fundraiser Bonny after £230k Marie Curie support

1 December 2021

A DRUMANESS man who helped raise £230,000 to support families deal with terminal illness has been posthumously honoured by Marie Curie.

The late Bonny (Bonaventure) Brown was one of a number of people given an honorary remembrance award at the charity’s annual Fundraising Excellence Awards.

His family watched online last week as Marie Curie chief executive Matthew Reed paid tribute to the 71 year-old who started the Co Down Marie Curie fundraising group.

He said: “We are here to celebrate people in their lifetime who gave so much time and of themselves and made such a considerable difference to the work of Marie Curie and to so many different families.”

Bonny sadly died on April 9 last year of a heart attack which shocked and saddened the Drumaness community. He had been due to get an operation on a heart valve in May after he had a pacemaker ed in January.

One from a family of 13 from Leitrim, Bonny became known as ‘Mr Marie Curie’ locally for his prominent fund-raising from 1997.

Along with his wife Frances, Bonny began fundraising to show his gratitude to Marie Curie for the help his wife’s family received during the last days of his father-in-law P J Walsh’s life.

His fund-raising activities began with a local charity cycle race. He also organised an annual fundraising at Drumaness Mills football club for 20 years where he was a trustee, ensuring fantastic fundraising with a good night’s craic for all there.

Anne McRoberts, Marie Currie’s deputy fundraising manager for Northern Ireland, said at the awards: “I had the privilege of knowing Bonny Brown for the entire length of my Marie Curie career.

“He was recruited as a cyclist in 1997 for a very popular local bike ride, and over the years Bonny had raised many thousands of pounds from the bike ride and was always recruiting new participants.”

Speaking about learning about Bonny’s death, community fundraiser Phil Kane said: “The group had been due to meet in May to celebrate 10 years in existence and £230,000 raised but the pandemic struck. In January 2020, Bonny was fitted with a pacemaker and was due to have a value fixed in May. I visited him in between to collect money from collection tins.

“I came away thinking that he was looking as well as he had been and I was shocked to hear of his death just a few weeks later.

“The community in Drumaness, where he was extremely well-known, had lost one of its best. In a newspaper report, a journalist said he was an unsung hero, he was exactly that.”

His sons, Barry and Stephen, have now received the award on behalf of Bonny which will be kept at the family home with their mother. 

Stephen said that his father would have been “quietly delighted” with his award.

“He was a very modest man, not one for taking the limelight,” he said of the grandfather-of-one who worked as a mechanic.

“My father was also very involved in local skittles and he would raise money by holding skittle nights or other clubs would fundraise for him,” added Stephen.

“Many players would bring their skittles to him for repair and he would never take money for it, just ask them to make a donation to Marie Curie.

“He and my mum would have collected money from around the ground at Drumaness Mills any time there was a final so they were always very involved in it. My father dedicated a lot of his time to Marie Curie.”

Stephen added that due to his father’s love of local sport, GAA and darts clubs also supported his fundraising activities.