Willow, founded by Bob and Megs Wilson in memory of their daughter Anna, held its charity ball at The Dorchester in November 2025 and raised £163,000 on the night.
Willow held its charity ball at The Dorchester in Mayfair on Saturday 22 November 2025, the one night of the year the charity fills a ballroom.
Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper and television presenter, founded Willow in 1999 with his wife Megs. It is a memorial to their daughter Anna, who died of cancer at 31 after living with the illness for five years.
In those years she and the people around her found what she called her special days. The charity grants a Special Day, on a referral, to adults aged 16 to 40 living with a life-threatening condition.
The ball opened with the former goalkeeper Graham Stack presenting Bob Wilson, his lifelong hero, with £51,000 from a boxing night he had organised. Rich, an RAF veteran living with oligodendroglioma, told the room how his Special Day took him back to surfing in Cornwall.
Martin Bayfield ran the auction, where a sterling silver pin by Sarah Wilson was sold in memory of Megs Wilson. Chesney Hawkes brought Bob Wilson on stage, and the night raised £163,000.