DEBRA Trustee Mick Thomas attends Buckingham Palace Garden Party

On 7 May, DEBRA Trustee, Mick Thomas, and his wife, Sarah, attended the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on the behalf of DEBRA.

We were invited to the palace by our Royal Patron, HRH Duchess of Edinburgh GCVO, to raise awareness of EB and our work to support the EB community.

Mick and Sarah have done so much to support DEBRA for more than 35 years and so it was our pleasure to ask them to attend on our behalf.

Mick has been both a committee member and Trustee at DEBRA. Following the death of son, Oliver, who had dystrophic EB, in December 2021, Mick and Sarah set up the Oliver Thomas Memorial Fund. Projects supported by this fund to date include a partnership with vision loss charity, Fight for Sight, a non-clinical EB research fellow, a weekend members event, and EB clinical practice guidelines.

Commenting on the day and what it means to represent DEBRA, Mick said:

“We were honoured to represent DEBRA on such a special occasion. Many thanks to our Patron for the kind invitation. DEBRA helped Oliver from when he was a few days old to his last. We will do anything we can to help DEBRA fund care and research for people living with EB and their families until a cure is found”.

We are very grateful to our Royal Patron for the opportunity to raise awareness of EB and the work we do. We are also very grateful to Mick and Sarah for everything they do to support DEBRA and the EB community.

If you would like to get involved with DEBRA, our website has information on lots of different ways that you can make a difference.