Wirral mum’s Mother’s Day wish to create a lasting legacy for the daughter she lost at 23

This Mother’s Day will be an emotional one for Wirral mum Jean Price, the first she’s marked since the death of her beautiful daughter just over four months ago.

“Although I have sons who love me, Mother’s Day was always a special day for me and Beth,” she says. “And it will be so difficult without her.”

Jean, 54, from Leasowe, is planning to surround herself with family, and celebrate the wonderful work that’s now being done in her daughter’s name.

Helped by friends of them both, Jean is on a fundraising mission to raise £10,000 for Claire House – the cost of running the amazing children’s hospice for one day.

And she is raising awareness about asthma, the condition that took Beth’s life.

Jean says:

“It’s that, along with my family and friends, that is keeping me going.

“Beth was such a caring person who would do anything for anyone, she hated to see anyone in pain, emotionally and physically.

“She would be astonished to see how people have come together to support me and raise money and awareness in her memory. She had a way of squealing with delight, and I just know that she’d be squealing right now.”

Beth, who worked in the Marino Lounge café bar in New Brighton and had just started a role as assistant in a care home, was just 23 years old when she passed away in October last year.

An infection caused her mild asthma to flare and led to a severe attack from which she never recovered.

Mum-of-four Jean – she and husband Chris also have three sons, Lee, 35; Joe, 25, and Adam, who’s 22 – explains that Beth had been poorly and got a course of treatment from her GP which she’d completed.

A member of Wallasey choir with her mum, Beth felt well enough to perform at a lunchtime concert it gave at The Floral Pavilion, but the next day began to feel unwell again.

“I persuaded her not to go into work and to make another appointment with the GP which she did the next day, but as the morning went on, Beth was feeling worse.

“Beth had a preventative inhaler and a reliever inhaler, and took her medication as prescribed regularly. Her asthma normally only came on if she was unwell, or had a cold – I must stress that it was MILD asthma,” says Jean.

But although she had used all her inhalers – and Jean’s nebuliser as she has an even more severe form of the condition which causes breathing problems – Beth was struggling to breathe.

Her parents decided to take her to Arrowe Park Hospital only a 15-minute drive away and Beth walked to the car, chatting with Jean.

“But during the car journey, Beth stopped breathing,” says Jean. With her heart still beating, Jean gave her daughter resuscitation breaths and when they got to hospital, with the ventilator not powerful enough to get oxygen into her lungs, medics used an air bag to manually pump air in.

Beth was resuscitated and put into an induced coma. The consultant said it was the worse asthma attack he had ever seen, brought on by an infection which took hold of Beth. She sadly passed away days later on Wednesday, October 25.

Now Jean and Chris are raising awareness for people to keep on top of asthma however mild, and to take medication.

“Beth couldn’t be saved – but there might be people out there who might not pass away needlessly if they take their asthma more seriously,” says Jean.

“Nothing can make it better for me. No-one can bring Beth back. But if raising awareness can save someone’s life or stop another parent going through what we are, it will mean some good can come out of this horrendous situation.

“I look at this as Beth doing this – and it’s what she would have wanted.”

Jean, a Slimming World consultant, is also raising money in Beth’s name, to make sure her daughter’s legacy lives on and that she is never forgotten.

“What’s happened is the worst thing imaginable,” says Jean, “and I still cry every single day, and the only thing keeping me going is raising awareness, and the amazing friends who are helping to raise money for Claire House in Beth’s name.

“That’s everything to me.

“Claire House is a charity close to both mine and Beth’s hearts. I did a sky dive for it in 2018 after losing weight with Slimming World, and after I visited the hospice Beth was touched by how amazing a place it was.”

Jean’s Slimming World friends have created a Just Giving fundraising group called Forever Autumn, after Beth’s favourite Justin Hayward song.

And they’re busy setting challenges to get to that £10,000 total:

• On May 26 some – including Jean – are doing a wing walk, and on June 15, they’re undertaking a night-time walk up Snowdon.

• Wallasey Choir, led by director Peter Mills, is staging a concert at Sacred Heart Social Club in Moreton on April 12.

• Marguerite Slane – Miss Tiger Rose – is staging a Burlesque Cabaret Show at The Grosvenor Ballrooms in Liscard on June 1.

• And, before all of that, on Sunday, March 17, Marino Lounge is holding a bingo night.

“Beth would love that she will be helping to make life better for the children who go to Claire House and their parents. 

“This Sunday will be hard. But as a family, we’ll spend it together and remember Beth, and think about all the wonderful work that’s being done in her name.

“We’ve raised £6,000 already, so the goal is already in sight.

“Beth lit up a room when she walked in, and touched the lives of people she met even only once. Now she’s touching the lives of people she’s never known, and Beth would be so proud.”

Find out how you can support Jean’s Mother’s Day Fundraiser here.

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