Many of you will have either seen or heard DJ Ashley Beedle perform over the past 30 years or so. I certainly grew up listening to him. Ashley is a legend in his own right.
Having battled with Stage 4 prostate cancer for the last 4 years, Ashley was dealt a further devastating blow at the beginning of November 2023. He suffered a brain bleed and seizure due to the rupture of a brain mass and in February 2024, during a 16-hour operation to remove the mass, he suffered a major stroke that caused the loss of movement in the leg and arm on Ashley’s right-hand side, robbing him of his power of speech.
Since recovering in King’s College’s Critical Care unit, Ashley has proved himself to be a fighter and has surmounted all odds with an incredible sense of humour and determination that has impressed everyone around him.
Thankfully, Ashley’s speech is slowly returning, and he’s being discharged from the residential rehab centre. However, he’ll remain in a room in a nursing home for the foreseeable future until suitable assisted living accommodation becomes available for him and his wife, Jo, via the local council housing list.
Sadly, the diagnosis is that mobility will not return to Ashley’s right side and he will be confined to a wheelchair requiring full time carers for the majority of his activities, including bathing and getting in and out of bed.
To get to this stage, Ashley and Jo have had to use all of their savings and now need our help. GoFundMe monies will go towards providing Ashley with a secure and comfortable future with access to private physio treatment, wheelchair friendly furniture, a hospital bed for home use etc. Ashley wants you to know that he is a survivor and not a victim and he says ‘thank you’ to all of you who contributed towards the fund.
I spoke to his wife Jo Wallace at RAMROD RECORDS, who has designed and produce a fundraising T-Shirt with Fashion For Good, as well as an upcoming collection of sweatshirts said “The T-shirt was designed by me and distributed via my T-shirt people, Exalt T-shirts in St Leonards. We’ve finished the first ‘run’ of grey and I’m thinking purple for the second batch of tees and sweats.”
“This was done by me independently. The phrase ‘I only need to count to FOUR’ were some of the first words that Ashley said to me after he came off the ventilator and I told him about his brain injury after his 16-hour op.”
For more info on the T-shirts, go to Jo Wallace on Instagram – link in bio. There will be some new pieces going on sale soon, I’ll keep you posted.