Willow returns to The Dorchester on Saturday 14 November 2026 for its flagship ball, funding special days for adults aged 16 to 40 in treatment for a life-threatening illness.
Willow was founded in 1999 by Bob Wilson, the Arsenal goalkeeper turned broadcaster, and his wife Megs, as a memorial to their daughter Anna, who died of cancer at 31. Anna had lived with the illness for five years, and it was in those years that she and the people around her found what she called her special days: ordinary time together that the treatment had not taken. Her parents built the charity on that idea and remain its life presidents.
Willow funds no research and buys no equipment, which makes it unusual among charities working alongside serious illness. What it provides is a day, for adults between 16 and 40 in active treatment for a life-threatening condition or in palliative care, shaped around what that person actually wants and who they want there. Each person receives one, once, and the charity works from clinical referrals rather than applications made on somebody’s behalf.
The 2026 ball returns to The Dorchester on Saturday 14 November, with a drinks reception, dinner, live music, a charity auction and an after-party. Tables of ten are sold in two grades, gold and silver, and Willow takes them directly rather than through a seller. It is the charity’s largest fundraising evening of the year, and it pays for a service that exists for one reason: Anna Wilson told her parents which days had been worth having.