Morning all, I have been asked by Julie Butterworth to deliver her sincere apologies to the lovely ladies that have taken the time to share their stories with her. Over the past few months Julie has been battling some personal issues and snowed under by her business commitments, as a result she has been out of contact for quite a long period of time. The work she offered to do in publicising our campaign is purely voluntary so when difficult choices needed to be made, it was the work on the campaign that needed to go on the back burner. Julie says, “I do have a light appearing at the end of my particular tunnel in about three weeks’ time when I will have completed the round of hectic activity surrounding the Police Federation conference which is this coming week.” Apology accepted Julie – as police survivors we understand the difficulties of coping with unexpected and unwelcome changes to our lives; we are extremely grateful for the support that you have given to our campaign thus far. Family must always come first. Since my last update the armed forces widows’ pension campaign has received further press attention and MP Greg Mulholland asked a question of the Prime Minister on their behalf during PMQs. At last the ladies are receiving the attention that they deserve and a number of forces charities are also paying attention to their plight. As a consequence we must work hard to keep out campaign on the agenda too. On Thursday 5th May the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections took place, and Police Crime Commissioners were elected throughout England and Wales. In some areas this means that we have an entirely new audience to target with information regarding our campaign. Can I thank those that benefitted from the changes in January for continuing to lend their support to those of us that did not; our mantra remains, “No widow left behind”. The numbers of signatures on the petition are actually going down at this point due to the removal of SPAM emails and more than one person attempting to sign from the same email address. If you have family members wishing to sign they must do so from a separate email account. Let’s get the total going in the right direction please my heart cannot stand much more! Anyone wishing to contact me can do so on the usual email address: CathrynHall@outlook.com Watch this space for further developments as I am always seeking new avenues to follow regarding our campaign. Onward and upwards. Cathryn