This Saturday, 60 Blesma supporters will be commemorating VE day 76 years on by completing their own self-set challenge in aid of Blesma. One supporter Diana Reid, who is married to Blesma Member Ian, has been baking and selling muffins. It was so successful the demand meant she beat her 76-muffin target, so we wanted to know more!

Why did you get involved in the VE Day 76 Victory Challenge? 
Blesma supports my husband. He is a below-knee amputee and two years ago, someone suggested my husband get in contact with the Association. Since then, the support we have had has been amazing and we even went on a Blesma couples’ trip to the Christmas Markets in Germany. 

What support did you receive?  
Ian had an accident five years ago and after numerous operations, the last option was to amputate his leg. He had a lot of chronic pain, his quality of life suffered so badly that he was self-harming and tried to take his life while in the hospital before they did the surgery to amputate his leg. Blesma stepped in to offer Ian their help but as I was also dealing with a lot of stress, our Support Officer Steve Burton offered counselling services to give me the support I needed to handle what was going on, too. Now, we are in the process of trying to move into a bungalow and Blesma have offered their assistance if we need adaptions or anything else.

Tell us why you chose to bake 76 cakes for the challenge? 
During the lockdown, we have been doing a lot of online activities to keep us busy. I took part in the Bake a Cake at Home activity – which I came first place in! - and then Emma (Gration, Outreach Officer for Scotland) asked me to do the judging of the Scone baking activity she organised. "hen I spotted the VE Day 76 victory challenge, I put a message out to my colleagues to see if anyone was interested and got a lot of motivation from that. I set the target to bake 76 muffins, thinking that would be enough, but the last total I made was 270 muffins, all to raise funds for Blesma.

How did you find taking part and selling the muffins? 
I work as a nursery nurse in a school for children with complex and additional needs and I’m always baking for my colleagues. This time I sold each muffin for £1, but many people paid a donation of more than needed to. So far, I have raised £403! I’ve been totally blown over by the response that I’ve had from my colleagues and friends. Everyone knows what Ian and I have been through the last couple of years so it’s been good for them to actually see who we are getting our support from and for everyone to help us give back to Blesma. 

If you are taking back in our VE Day 76 Victory challenge or have plans to commemorate VE Day this Saturday (8 May), make sure you tag Blesma in your photographs and let us know what you are up to!

If you are struggling with anything mentioned within this article or feel you would benefit from Blesma's counselling service, please approach your Blesma Support Officer in the first instance.