News

An annual afternoon tea party celebrating Andrew’s life

21st July 2026

Sophie and Neale’s eldest son Andrew, died from cancer, in 2019, when he was just 13 years old. The family have received support from our bereavement service, Momentum Echoes, and every year Sophie, Neale, and Andrew’s brother, Thomas, honour Andrew’s memory by organising different fundraising activities, including their annual afternoon tea party, which has just taken place for the fourth year.

Bereavement support

A beautiful garden set up for annual afternoon tea

Sophie said: “I absolutely love baking and visiting tea gardens, and Andrew and I used to really enjoy going for afternoon tea together. Years ago, I used to host tea parties for a breast cancer charity, but after Andrew passed away, our focus became raising money for Momentum.

Over the years the weather seems to have gone from one extreme to another – we’ve had torrential rain, and last weekend we experienced heatwave temperatures of over 30 degrees. I had to think carefully about what cakes to bake this year and make sure I didn’t take them out too early in case they started to melt! I made Victoria sponge, salted caramel cake, coffee cake, chocolate cake and lemon curd cake amongst others. We made sure we had plenty of cold drinks available in ice buckets and created as much shade as possible.

The afternoon tea party for Momentum has been an annual event in our garden since 2023, and around 30 people attend. For those couple of hours, I know that everyone is enjoying being together, but I also know that in that time they are thinking about and remembering Andrew. I hope that everyone had a lovely afternoon amongst friends, eating delicious cakes and raising money for such a worthy cause.

So far, we have raised over £3,000 just from this event, and we have added this to Andrew’s Precious Moments Tribute Page – it is important to us to be able to keep Andrew’s page up-to-date and active.

My younger son, Thomas, doesn’t help with the baking but there are certain cakes he likes to make sure that I bake, such as coffee cake and chocolate Guinness cake! The most popular bake of the day was definitely the Victoria sponge.

Knowing that our fundraising will help other families is so important to us, and it would be important to Andrew too. Being able to help other families, even in a small way, makes the stress of baking eight cakes in a heatwave worthwhile!”

July marks Bereaved Parents Awareness Month. Throughout July, Momentum Echoes is holding events for parents including a trip on our riverboat and a walk and talk at Wakehurst. If you are a Momentum Echoes family, you can find out more about these events here: Echoes Family Events – Momentum Children’s Charity