Amelia and her fight against Neuroblastoma - 1st Holy Communion at Corpus Christi Catholic Church March 18th

I have known about Amelia and her condition for a couple of months now, ever since Julie Arthur filled me in about it all, and how she wanted to give Amelia a fashion shoot. But Amelia became too ill and the shoot never happened.

Late Tuesday night Julie sent me an SOS on Facebook asking if I was available on Thursday to help her photograph Amelia's 1st Holy Communion. After all that Julie had told me about Amelia how could I say no?

After speaking to Julie about timings and where everything was happening, I was happy when she said that Father Denis had given permission to shoot through the whole ceremony. For some reason, I kept thinking back to Father Ted and wanted to call him Father Dougle instead of Denis, but after saying over a couple of times, Denis stuck.

After meeting with Amelia I have to say she didn't strike me as an eight year old child who has Neuroblastoma. She is very bright and happy, everyone around her is the same, if it wasn't for the fact that I knew about her condition, I wouldn't have said she had cancer at all..


Father Denis informed us on the day that Amelia didn't like a lot of attention, so I long lensed the ceremony, only breaking out the wide angle for the group shots.

Throughout the Cermemony Amelia had the support from her family, friends and school.




Some of Amelia's friends had written prayers for Amelia and read them out.







Amelia's cheaky year group photo.





Amelia is a great kid, at 8 she's been through more that most have will in a lifetime. She is so upbeat about everything and seems like nothing will get her down. All of her school friends were very supportive and caring it's great to see.

Seeing something like this certainly helps put your own trivial matters into place and how lucky you actually are.

It was an honour for me to attend the Communion and I wish Amelia and her family the best.