The Fratellis open holiday home for children with cancer in memory of Eilidh Brown

The group, fronted by Jon Fratelli, joined the family of Eilidh Brown as official patrons of her charity The Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund.

The Fratellis raised money by playing fundraiser shows for the fund and donated the income from their cover of the hit song Yes Sir, I Can Boogie. 

Jon said: “From the moment we were invited to become part of the family that is the Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund and to help make the dream of Eilidh’s respite home a reality, everyone involved and the cause itself has meant so much to us.

"Now that Eilidh’s dream has been realized we are so happy to finally see the home that promises to offer something rare and precious for years to come.

"There’ll be more to do as there always is but just for a moment everyone who worked their heart out to realise this dream can take a breath and feel a sense of heartfelt pride that Eilidh’s respite home will soon offer young people and their families the precious space that Eilidh envisioned”.

Mince Fratelli, Gordon Brown, Nicole Brown, Jon Fratelli, (standing) Simone Lahbib (Eilidh's aunt)

Eilidh, who passed away in March 2010, dreamed of opening a holiday home where children with cancer could come together and reconnect after the trauma of cancer treatment. 

Eilidh's mum Nicole said: “The Fratellis, what can I say, the help and unwavering support they gave us was massive.

"I always say to them that we built this house on rock and roll having them supporting us and giving us the platform to reach out to the public and enable us to get our story across was in my mind the real reason we got there.

“They are so humble and so cool, they always say they did not do much but just them having our backs meant a lot to us personally as most of the time fundraising is just us sitting at home thinking ‘what more can we do?’.

"Then we would get another message from them saying "we are in for whatever' – that really lifted us and we totally adore them all.”

Eilidh's dad Gordon said: “Eilidh was older than most children around her when she was in Yorkhill receiving treatment so she kind of blanked any offers of entertainment or days out that were put her way, but one day Eilidh and us were invited to a day out for children at Christmas where the children were given Christmas presents.

“Eilidh was given a Wii console which was a big deal for all of us as we were relatively poor, Eilidh was blown away by this and it was then that she first said that when she got better she was determined to do as much as possible to help people going through what we were going through.

“At this time, as devastated as we were, we were fairly confident that after six months all would be good as Eilidh had a highly treatable form of cancer (germ cell, we were told it was 80-90 per cent full recovery) and it was from this day that we vowed to help others that needed it most.”

Gordon and Nicole worked tirelessly with a team of four volunteers to raise funds to build the home outside Thornhill. 

They attended the launch along with Eilidh's aunt, actress Simone Lahbib, and popular songwriter and actor Tom Urie.

Nicole said: “There were times we thought it might not be possible – Covid held us up by around two years - but way before that after we raised £250,000 we thought we were good to build, however when we got our first costing through we discovered it would be well over £600,000.

"This was probably the toughest time. We were a bit embarrassed as we had told everybody, all our supporters, that we would be starting and we were miles off.

"We felt that it was not possible to reach that target and we had let our girl down again after failing to save her. We actually hid from people in the street and social media as we really did not know what we could do or say.

“The general public and support we continued to get together with us redoubling our efforts meant we got there.”

Gordon added: “The house is now officially open for viewings, we will have some official open days and we will do our best to accommodate anybody who wants to see what we, our builder John Mcleod and our architect Ally Croll have built.

“We expect to take our first families in July and people will be either told about us through the hospitals they are receiving treatment or can contact us on our website www.eilidhbrown.co.uk and anyone who wants to donate can do so there too.”