Still heartbroken and still fighting: Bobby Colleran’s mum speaks of pride as she celebrates 10 years of saving lives in his name

Her voice calm and confident, Joanne Colleran admits she would ‘do anything in a heartbeat’ if it meant she still had her son.

“I would give up my life in an instant if it meant that Bobby was still alive.”

But she says: “I can’t do that, I know that’s not going to happen.

“What I can do is try to stop other mums going through what I have, and what my family has, and that’s what spurs me on.

“It’s the one thing I can do for him, and I am so proud of what we have achieved.”

Bobby was only six years old when he was killed in a road accident as he walked home from school in West Derby in October 2014.

Joanne helped set up The Bobby Colleran Trust in 2015 to campaign for, and improve, road safety for school children.

And in the last 10 years it has grown every year: “We have got bigger, we do more, and we reach more people – and it’s all in his name.

“It’s a massive challenge but we keep chipping away because we are saving lives.  Even if it was one life, it would be worth all the hard work and everything we do.”

Each year on March 13, on what would have been his birthday, the charity encourages people to Wear Blue for Bobby, to raise awareness and funds.

And this year, as it celebrates 10 years of The Bobby Colleran Trust, it’s marking the anniversary with new initiatives and a renewed sense of purpose.

Initially set up to increase safety with 20mph Bobby Zones outside schools and promote education within them, it’s gone on to establish child and family bereavement counselling from the Bobby Base set up in the grounds of his old school Blackmoor Park Infants, which has a garden and interactive cave in his memory. 

It also offers mental health sessions and coping advice for children who are struggling.

Last year, on what would have been his 16^th birthday, the Trust spent £11,000 to create road safety activity packs, hand delivering them to every infant and junior school in Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Knowsley.

This year The Bobby Colleran Trust is doing even more:

• It’s supporting schools and residents with traffic cones hand-decorated by Joanne to encourage safety and prevent another tragedy – and the feedback is that they’re making a huge difference
• It has commissioned a 15-minute animated road safety video based on last year’s activity packs so that every school in the Liverpool City Region can use the video independently in assemblies to teach pupils road safety skills.  The £15,000 project is funded by SWARCO and L&R Roadliners and it is hoped it will eventually go across the UK
• Supported by a new sponsor for its road safety program, Acorn Insurance, it’s revamping all the Slow Down and Bobby Zone signage outside schools across Liverpool – next week alone visiting, speaking to, and revamping signage at 11 schools – and the programme will continue across the summer.  It’s also supporting schools’ liaison with local councils to restore road markings where necessary
• New development funding from the National Lottery has enabled the Trust to get a new website, secure IT, and a new system for counselling services called Pragmatic Tracker which takes it in line with the likes of Alder Hey

“Although, as the charity grows from strength to strength with its road safety and bereavement programmes, we desperately need financial support to be able to continue to provide all the work we do with our communities,” stresses Ann McKenna, development manager for the Trust.

Tomorrow, as well as encouraging people to Wear Blue for Bobby, media screens across the city and St Johns Beacon will be turned blue to remember a little boy who sadly died but who has continued to live on through the Trust and the message that will hopefully help other children like him.

Joanne, 46, who’s married to David with whom she also has Bobby’s three brothers, Harry, 18, and 14-year-old twins Georgie and Frankie, says: “We are a small team but it’s the best team, and everybody is passionate about what we are doing.

“It is really hard – but I will never give up.

“Tomorrow would have been Bobby’s 17^th birthday and he would have been getting his provisional licence to start driving, and it’s the little things like that that hurt, not just the bigger milestones.

“We shouldn’t have to be doing what we’re doing. It takes a minute to slow down and think. But people don’t, so we need to change the mindset.

“That’s why I’m here.  Still heartbroken. Still fighting. And it why I will never give up.”

Find out more about The Bobby Colleran Trust here.

Read more features from The Guide Liverpool here.