From where it all stemmed

IN 1987, the bleakness of cancer was teamed with one of the brightest flowers of spring, the daffodil, because of a trip Charles Cully, a founder member of the Irish Cancer Society, took to Toronto.

There, Cully met the daughter of a founder member of Toronto daffodil day, who told of a small group of cancer-support volunteers working with army veterans to sell the flower and start the first Daffodil Day.

What hooked Cully, says his widow, Margaret - the entrepreneur and businessman died in 2000 aged 65 - “was the sense of a long dreary winter and the daffodil being a sign of hope that spring and summer were on the way, the idea of ‘oh, my goodness, the long dreariness is over’.