Santa's Day Off is our daft attempt at a Christmas song, but it's also a song we decided to use to raise money for charity. 100% of the money raised from the sale/streaming of this song (if any) will be donated to The Children's Hospital Charity, which provides facilities and equipment for Sheffield Children's Hospital. They are currently raising money to build a helipad on the hospital roof, which is a project very close to the heart of our rhythm guitarist, Matt. His daughter was born with a rare condition and is a regular visitor to the hospital.
​
In 2015, when she was only a few months old, Matt's family were just four hours into a holiday at CenterParcs when their daughter Ellena began to choke whilst feeding. Luckily they had resuscitation training and were able to get her breathing again, and when paramedics arrived they decided it was still best to send her to hospital so they organised a helicopter to fly her quickly back. Only one parent could go so Matt jumped in the car to meet them there.
At Sheffield, the helicopter has to land in the park over the road. It was just after 5:00pm on a sunny weekday so the park was very busy with people. The police are supposed to turn up to help clear a space for the helicopter to land but usually they don't make it, and they didn't this time. The helicopter simply has to hover and wait for people to get the idea they need to move (and also to stop taking photos or filming).
​
Once they landed, Matt's wife then had to hold Ellena (she was too small to go on the trolley brought out by the hospital nurses) while they ran across the road and finally got into the hospital.
Having battled rush hour traffic, Matt only arrived at the hospital ten minutes after his wife and baby. Luckily Ellena was already starting to act like herself again (though she was white as a sheet) and her condition this time wasn't urgent. However, that's not the case for many children who need this service. The delay in reaching a hospital ward could mean the difference between life and death. On top of that, the helicopter can't land there at all at night as the park is unlit, or during snowy or icy conditions during winter. A helipad would mean that a helicopter could land any time day or night and the child would get into the hospital far faster.
Our little song isn't going to build the helipad all by itself (it'd be nice, but they need around £14,000,000) but we're doing what we can to chip away at that total. Please consider buying the song from our Bandcamp page (the best way to buy the song and raise money for the charity. You can also buy it from Amazon or iTunes. If you're really strapped for cash, simply stream it on Spotify, although to raise the full total for the helipad, you'd have to listen to the song 4.67 billion times.