The Lauren Eley Centre for Music & Art, Baan Nam Khem

for the children of the Tsunami

Thank you to all who have supported us in this project.  We have now seen the centre and the children at first hand, and are so happy to see how the children have been helped and how Chatchada's work has continued and progressed.

We visited the Lauren Eley Centre for Music & Art in February this year so that we could finally see the centre in action for Lauren's 21st birthday.  We had a party with the children in the centre at lunchtime on 26th February and we set off sky lanterns from Baan Nam Khem beach on the evening of Lauren's birthday.  It was such a special day.

Lauren's Lanterns

We sent up sky lanterns from Baan Nam Khem Beach in Thailand on Lauren's 21st birthday.  We were accompanied by a local mother who lost her son in the Tsunami.  She sent a lantern up for him.  We were also with a young lad who had lost all of his family in the Tsunami and he too sent up a lantern for his family. 

A party was held at the Centre and we had a lovely day with the children.  We feel sure that Lauren was watching over us on that special day and would have loved the party and helping with the children. 

We gave gift bags to the children.  They contained art and school materials and the bags would be useful in their own right for carrying things to school.

Thank you for everybody's messages for Lauren and for us for Lauren's 21st birthday. 

A heartfelt thank you to all who have helped us over the last three years, for the candles lit, the tributes paid, the visits made to Lauren's garden and the efforts and contributions you have made to our fundraising for the children of the Tsunami, in loving memory of Lauren.  Words alone cannot express just how very much all of this has meant to us.  Lauren touched so many people in her short life, and Lauren's Gift will continue to help children in need, just as Lauren would have wished.  





LAURENS GIFT - Latest News
http://www.thailandstsunami.com/LaurensFund2.html

Please scroll to the bottom of the above webpage link to read about a friend's visit that was made this year to Lauren's centre.  Thank you Jill for taking the time out of your holiday to do such a meaningful thing for the children of the Tsunami, and in memory of Lauren.  Thank you to everybody who has made this project possible.  Please visit this website regularly or contact us direct for news of future fundraising events and ways in which you can help.  


This memorial website was created in memory of our beautiful daughter, Lauren (Flossy), who was born on 26 February 1987 and tragically passed away on 11 December 2004 at the age of only 17.  She will stay in our hearts forever.   Lauren was in her second and final year at college, training to be a Nursery Nurse.  She wanted to work with children with special needs one day and she also wanted to train to be a counsellor when she was older.  She was very intuitive and could sense when people were troubled or in need.  She had a special affinity with children, animals and old people.  She had the gift of music and fun and could cheer anyone up when they were down, and was well known for her practical jokes at college.  She loved her dizzy blonde image and played it to maximum effect.  Blonde hair and pink clothing, girly and giggly, everybody loved her.  Her grandad called her Marilyn Monroe, we called her Cameron Diaz, she could be anyone she chose to be, but we loved her best as Lauren! 
                       





         


Lauren was our youngest child, born on her sister's 3rd birthday.  They used to say they were twins.  Our 3 children were so close in age, and Lauren was taller for her age than Emma and Paul so when they were small they sometimes looked like triplets.  Lauren was nicknamed Flossy because of her candyfloss hair, and the name stuck.  Even her friends knew her as flossy.  If she sent us a text message it always ended 'Love Flossy xx'.

                  

She was a baby who was always on the go, didn't sleep much and when she was a toddler I had to have eyes in the back of my head.  She was very adventurous, had absolutely no fear of anyone or anything, and I would have to stop her from running into the road without looking, from going right up to the faces of huge dogs, not realising that they weren't all friendly.  We always felt she had no sense of danger.  


She tried horseriding as a child (which she loved) and we only stopped the horseriding after a scary experience on holiday in France when Emma and Lauren's horses started kicking and fighting.  She also did basketball for a while and got an award.  She had so many friends, everybody loved her, she was so popular and funny.  There was a very caring side to Lauren though too, and she couldn't bear to see anybody left out of anything, she would help anyone in trouble.  She was always there for her friends, loyal and true. 
        

When she was small we used to call her keyhole kate because she was always peering through gaps in fences or through gaps in doors.  She always wanted to know what was going on.  She was hilarious and always had us in fits of laughter.  She had such an active imagination, she was a wonderful storyteller and always got good comments about her stories and poetry at school.  

She loved playing with dolls.  She had a huge collection of china dolls and loved anything girly and sparkly.  When she got older she had a huge collection of make up and she collected rings, earrings and other jewellery from her aunts and her grandmothers.  


She loved chocolate (especially Mars bars), roast dinners, spaghetti carbonara, Mcdonalds, chinese takeaways, cheese & pickle sandwiches, coca cola, ice cream.  She didn't like mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, fish and chips or curry.  She used to love coming food shopping with me, and she was a brilliant food packer.  She loved company, and even if I was only going round the corner in the car she would jump in for the ride.  
                                                                  
She was lovable, cheeky, full of life and laughter, full of fun.  She was a whirlwind who was always doing something.  She was constantly singing, always chatty, always full of news.  She was feisty and not scared to speak her mind.  She ruled our house, woe betide me if I came home from work and she had tidied the kitchen and I hadn't noticed, or if she realised I hadn't been listening to what she was saying. 

When she was at school she did her work experience in a nursery for children with special needs, and she decided that's what she wanted to do when she was older.  She got a lovely report from the nursery, and they said that she had an ability to connect with the children, get on their level.  A lot of the children were autistic and Lauren felt she had found her vocation.
                                                                        

She enrolled on a 2 year college course, training to be a nursery nurse, when she left school.  She had struggled at school with maths and sciences, but she loved college.  There was a lot of very hard course work, which she usually did sat at the computer on a Sunday but also worked hard through the week on, but there was always two days a week practical work experience, either with a family or at a nursery.  She got lovely reports from wherever she went.  She was always loved.  The nursery she had been working at had offered Lauren a permanent job for when she left college.  They told me that they had had lovely comments about Lauren from the parents of the children that went there.



She was also about to apply to Mark Warner Holidays for a summer holiday job when she left college, as a nanny in one of their resorts.  She'd persuaded a couple of friends to apply as well, and the application form was waiting on the coffee table for me to help her finish on that Saturday, the 11th December, the Saturday she never made it back home.

She loved singing, and karaoke, and for a couple of years she went to a local drama and singing group on Saturdays.  Lauren was always in her room singing - the whole neighbourhood must have heard her.  The day we lost Lauren was the day the music died for us.  Her musical heroes were Maria Carey and Christina Aguilera.  A lot of her favourite films all seemed to be musical-based, from The Sound of Music when she was small, to Evita and Moulin Rouge when she was older.  Other favourite films of Lauren's were About A Boy (I can still remember her laughing soo much at that film), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Colour Purple, Shrek.  So many more.  Favourite programmes were Neighbours, Hollyoaks, Bad Girls, X Factor, Eastenders.



At college her teacher said in her Eulogy at Lauren's funeral that she thought that Lauren was on the wrong course at first, and that she should have been in Performing Arts.  She said that when she would leave the room Lauren would stand on the chair and sing to the lads on the Public Services and Engineering courses.  Everybody knew her at college.  She was well-loved and popular, fun loving and a practical joker.    

She walked our neighbours' Patricia & John's dogs for two years and they came to love her as if she was their own daughter.  Only two nights before we lost Lauren she was chatting to Patricia & John, making a fuss of their new puppies.  John and Patricia helped us so much after we lost Lauren, truly good neighbours.  Lauren used to babysit for our other neighbours children too - she was so well known in our estate.  We didn't realise how many people knew Lauren locally, as she had stopped to chat with so many on her walks with the dogs.  It was only when we lost her and got the cards and flowers from neighbours that we realised how much of an impact she had made on so many people.  

Quite often me and Lauren would drive down the M1 to see my family and we have a special memory of me and Lauren and my mum and my sister going out for a meal together just a month before we lost Lauren.  She had just got to the age where she could come out socially with us as an adult - she is so very missed by all the family.



Her favourite time of year was Christmas - Lauren loved Christmas - Lauren WAS christmas in our house. During the week before we lost her Lauren was still giving me lists of things she wanted for Christmas, she was so excited and looking forward to Christmas. We had planned a surprise on Boxing Day to take her nan to the panto - there was so much going on, so much she was looking forward to. 

She also loved family holidays and would always be digging out the videos of her childhood holidays.  It is such a source of comfort that we know how much Lauren loved her childhood.  Any of her friends that came round would also have to sit and look at the videos with her.  She loved looking back at her childhood. 

One of my last memories of Lauren is on the Wednesday before we lost her, when she came home from college and was telling us how she had been learning Makoton sign language.  I can still see her so vividly, sitting in our living room, singing "Silent Night, Holy Night" and signing it at the same time.  Her teacher spoke about how she had remembered Lauren singing this so sweetly at college when they were learning Makoton, and ended her eulogy by saying:-
 "Goodnight Lauren, Sleep in Heavenly Peace"


Christmas was Lauren's favourite time of the year, and ours too, but now it has become the hardest.  I can never hear that christmas carol without remembering Lauren singing and signing it for us. 


What Happened?  

Lauren went out to nursery on a Friday morning, and we never saw her again.  She had a call from a friend who also worked at her nursery placement late on Thursday night asking if Lauren could do her a favour and go out with her on the Friday night, as the friend had to return her mobile phone to her ex-boyfriend.  The plan was that Lauren would go straight from work to her friend's house, go out then stay at her house overnight and the friend's father would take her to her Saturday job the next day, then Lauren would get the bus home.  Lauren was badly let down that night.  Until we have gone through the inquest I cannot say any more about this publicly.  

There are so many questions that remain unanswered and we will never know all the details of that night and the next morning. 

She left here on Friday morning, bright and bubbly, cheerful and chatty, and never made it home again.  This beautiful, sparkling girl, so full of life, gone from our lives forever.

To this day we do not know what happened or why Lauren was in the car park, if anyone else was involved or whether Lauren was on her own.  We will never have the answers, just the most painful grief to live with - the worst loss is truly the loss of a child, our precious daughter, the void can never be filled. 

This following appeal was published in our local paper as we approached the 1st anniversary of Lauren's death.  

Published Date: 21 November 2005

Why did bubbly Lauren die? 

THE parents of a Northampton teenager who mysteriously fell from a multi-storey car park say there are many unanswered questions surrounding her death.  Lauren Eley, 17, died on December 11 last year after she plunged from a stairwell on the Grosvenor Centre car park.
Her family are now making a fresh appeal for witnesses to come forward so they can find out what happened to the "bubbly" student.
Mother Bridget Eley said the shopping centre and car park would have been at its busiest on a Saturday, just two weeks before Christmas.
She added: "We need to do everything we can to get every bit of information. Someone must have seen something."
Lauren took the bus into town with a male friend on December 11 arriving in Marefair just before 1pm.  She was wearing a white jacket, blue denim skirt and distinctive check-patterned shoes.
When she got off the bus she spilt up from her friend and went shopping in town.  She bought a pair of black tights in Debenhams, which she then changed into.  On two occasions before 2pm she was captured on CCTV on the Grosvenor Centre second floor near to the car park lifts by Boots.  Friends of Lauren also reported stopping and chatting to her outside McDonalds. She came from the direction of Beatties and then headed towards the Disney Store. 

Her parents are desperate to know if anyone else saw her in the Grosvenor Centre or the town centre between 1pm and 2pm. 

Witnesses told the police they saw a group of youths messing around in the car park and playing in the stairwell. The same group found Lauren in Union Street after she fell down a narrow gap between the stairwell and the entrance ramp.   Another witness reported seeing a man climbing on the walls of level one of the car park between 1.30pm and 2pm.  Her father added: "We want to know if anybody else saw this man or anyone or anything else suspicious that afternoon. 

"The last confirmed sighting of Lauren was of her walking into the car park at level one, between 1.50pm and 2pm from the direction of the Sainsbury's lifts.  "It has never been established which floor Lauren fell from, but the staircase was viewable from the Northampton House flats and in full view of cars driving into the car park via the entrance ramp."
Lauren was conscious when found and was asked several times by paramedics if she had jumped and each time she replied no. She was also able to give her name, age and date of birth.  She died four hours later while in theatre at Northampton General Hospital. 

Her parents are still desperate to know whether her fall was an accident or if anyone else was involved. In January police arrested five youths on suspicion on manslaughter but later released them without charge.
Det Supt Larry Ennis said: "We made numerous media appeals and officers under took several interviews surrounding Lauren's death. We have prepared a report for the coroner of our findings.  

"If there is still someone who knows something about Lauren's death who has not come forward we would ask them to do so as a matter of urgency." 

A few months after this appeal, in April 2006, more information was passed to the police, as a conversation came to light that had taken place shortly after Lauren died. The police are still investigating this information, and only then will be able to have the inquest and get the legal dealings over with and try and rebuild our lives.  The investigation into Lauren's death was very slow, every little thing seemed to take weeks to investigate and mistakes were made which have left us feeling that we will never really find the truth.  The investigation was poorly resourced and low priority was given to investigating Lauren's death, which compounded our grief, adding a dreadful further strain, and having to wait nearly 8 weeks before we could even have her funeral, because we were told that she had to have two post-mortems.  We had to wait over 6 weeks from the time of the first post mortem to the time of the 2nd one because of "staff shortages over christmas".  These things, and other things that happened to us when we lost Lauren, should never be allowed to happen in the future. 


We are trying to accept that we will never know what happened to Lauren or why.  An inquest won't give us the answers - just more anguish and hurt.  I have come to my own answer, that this was a tragic accident, not meant to happen, whether Lauren was on her own or got caught up with others.  Whatever happened, I feel it wasn't intentional.  Lauren was only 17, and sometimes she made mistakes, sometimes she misjudged people and was too trusting.  She paid for those mistakes and her naivety with her life.

In the meantime we have raised almost £7000 in Lauren's memory.  Please see 'Her Legacy' to see where Lauren's Gift is being used.  Her life will not have been in vain and even though physically she isn't with us now,  the money raised in her memory is helping children with special needs. 

Thank you Lauren for your most precious gift to those of us who were lucky enough to know you and love you - YOU.  Only with us for 17 years, but 17 years which we will treasure forever.  

Goodnight Flossy, sleep tight xxxx




"I AM IN THE LIGHT"

When you see a butterfly, dancing colours flying by
A willowy feather rising high, and a gentle pink rose, soft as a sigh
When a colourful rainbow appears in the sky
You will know, I am standing by
*
I am still sparkling, I am nearby
The shiniest star you can see in the sky
*
Like the joy I brought you while I was here
I am glistening inside every tear
I am shining, I am bright, I am Lauren, I am in the light
I am the butterfly, the rainbow and the rose
I am that feather but in different clothes
*
I am always beside you, each step that you take
I sit and think with you, each decision you make
I walk with you, talk with you and feel you so near
Although you can’t see me, I hold you so dear
*
I am always with you and will always be there
Every breath that you take, I am in the air
Think of me singing a song so sweet
In a beautiful place where one day we will meet
Til then I am sleeping in heavenly peace
*
It hurts me, your pain, but please understand
I’m safe and I’m happy
I’m holding your hand

I am always with you