We all like a heart warming story, so pull up a chair whilst I tell you about Ali Cassim, a well known and well loved Eccles character and his exemplary good deed. Ali likes a flutter on the horses or football, particularly on his beloved Liverpool Football Club, he was born in Toxteth and is affectionately known as "The Tokky Terrier". Just before Christmas he went into the Eccles branch of Betfred and saw that they were holding a raffle for what he thought was a Christmas hamper and yes you guessed it, he won it. He went to collect his hamper expecting tins of food, cakes, biscuits etc and was presented with a hamper of booze! I must mention that Ali was one of our volunteers at the Winter Warmer Party we organised in November at Eccles Gateway, he enjoyed himself so much that he has asked if he can volunteer for our next two OAP parties we are organising. In the true spirit of Christmas he phoned me up and asked if we would like the bottles... assorted spirits, wine etc, 10 in total as raffle prizes for our upcoming Easter party. what a magnificent gesture, it really shows their are some great community minded people in Eccles, despite all the criticism the town gets. I spoke to him when we went to pick them up and he told me that he thought it was a food hamper and if it had been, he was going to donate it to us, so we could give to local foodbanks, but hoped the bottles would be nice prizes. Almost lost for words at his kindness and generosity, the world needs more Ali Cassim's in my opinion, so Ali despite your unswerving allegiance to Liverpool Football, I doff my cap... you're a good man.
