After Ivan Trusler, 70 years old, from Colchester, lost his wife to cancer last year he had a dream to do something in her memory and it certainly seems as though he is soon to fulfill that dream.
Ivan is at this moment, producing a CD in Brenda’s memory and although it is proving to be a lot of hard work, it is very rewarding. The proceeds from the UK sales will go to the Cancer Research UK and the sales from Spain split equally between them and the A.E.C.C. here in Torrevieja. Just one euro per CD will be taken to cover the printing and packaging costs. The cost of the CD is 5 euros.

Ivan’s story starts in August 2003 when he,and his wife Brenda were staying in their home on the Orihuela Costa for their usual few weeks holiday. Brenda had some pains in her side which she put down to a stitch, but because it lasted a few days, then her arm became swollen she, and Ivan sought medical advice at the Vega Baja hospital. Ivan said that they used their E111 and couldn’t have been treated better. He told the ‘Leader’, ‘‘we couldn’t believe the treatment, it was just fantastic and the kindness from the doctors and nurses was wonderful all through Brenda’s 13 day stay. The thing that touched them both was that when Brenda came out of the Vega Baja she needed injections to be administered daily. A nurse, who befriended Brenda called round to their house, after her shift every evening, and attended to those injections. Cancer had been detected by the Vega Baja hospital, but Brenda wanted to go back home to have her treatment. The Vega Baja supplied all the paperwork for the hospital in the UK and Ivan had it all translated. But even so with all these details and the results from various tests on hand, the hospital in the UK didn’t react fast enough and when eventually Brenda was admitted to hospital and under went an operation, sadly, although she made it through the operation, she didn’t regain consciousness. Brenda was 68 years of age.

By the October of last year Ivan knew that he had to do something positive in memory of his wife, because he had arrived at the situation where he couldn’t listen to music or concentrate on anything at all. Then he remembered his and Brenda’s first Christmas record that they had bought together. This record was Santo Natale by David Whitfield, which was in the UK charts Christmas of 1954, reaching the number two position. They were both big fans of David Whitfield, as were many people from this era. David Whitfield was one of Hull’s most famous sons, a 1950’s singing sensation and before that a Royal Navy seaman who saw frontline action aboard HMS Ramillies at the D Day landings in 1944. He had 20 hits, including two number one records which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the top 100 UK singers of all time. He was also one of the first British singers to get into the American charts and the first British male singer to be awarded a gold disc for record sales.
He died, whilst touring Australia, in 1980 from a brain haemorrhage at the age of 53, but 50 years after his first hit, he still has legions of fans and a very strong David Whitfield appreciation society.

Ivan approached the record label company Decca, who own the rights to the song, to see if they could re-release it for a charity, but the said it wasn’t in their plans in the fore seeable future. The good news was that they were willing to sell him the rights to have it recorded privately. Ivan thought about it and soon the record label BREVAN, taken from both Brenda and Ivan’s names was born. Since then Ivan has worked non stop, but not by himself. Lyn, who lost her husband to cancer at the age of 59, four years ago is helping Ivan with the computer, packaging and distribution work. In fact Lyn told the ‘Leader’, I have worked as a P.A. for a lot of top UK bosses, but never have I worked for one who is so articulate and fussy as Ivan, and I don’t even get paid !

Ivan had an idea of how he wanted the front cover to look, and after over 100 photos he found the one photo that he would use on the sleeve of the CD. The deep blue background came from one of Brenda’s favourite towels.
Each song has cost Ivan over 1,000 euros and so far 5,000 copies of the CD have been produced, in total so far Ivan has spent out over 7,000 euros.

The CD’s will be launched in the UK on the 50th Anniversary of it appearing in the UK charts, which is November 11th. The venue is to be the Town Hall in Colchester, Essex, where Ivan and Brenda held office during 1993 as Mayor and Mayoress. Five thousand copies have been produced for sale in the 200 Cancer Research shops around the UK, and the Virgin Megastore in Colchester will also be stocking copies, which opens up a link to all the other Virgin stores around the UK.

Ivan has many people to be grateful too for letting him release this CD. Brandied Media and Steve Perry of Stag Studios for the re-mastering, especially tack numbers three and four, which have never been released on record before, and were taken from old live recordings and digitally re-mastered. Track number three, The Truth, was especially written for David Whitfield, by his pianist Bert Gaunt and never recorded commercially, but thanks to Bert’s daughter Geraldine this has been made possible.

Once Ivan had everything set up in the UK, he decided to come over to the Costa Blanca, for a holiday and promote the CD here and he hasn’t stopped since his arrival. The ‘official’ launch date for Spain will be 1st November, at the Los Arcos restaurant, Torrevieja and Ivan will be inviting all those, who have been kind enough to offer help in selling the CD’s ( boxed in 10’s ) on behalf of these two charities to attend.

Un officially they will be on sale here 1st of October.
Helens Trucks are taking care of the delivery from the UK to Spain free of charge, the Green Coach Tours  ( Blanket Trip ) will have them for sale on all of their coaches. They have recently lost one of their employees to Cancer and were only too pleased to offer their help. Bargain Books, The Sweetie Shop and many other local bars, restaurants, clubs and societies who usually support the A.E.C.C. have also come forward to help.

Ivan has set up a special bank account in the Cam bank at Playa Flamenca, and even sold a copy of the CD to the manager.
In the UK Ivan has set up his own web site www.santonatale.co.uk and advertisements are appearing in many UK magazines. Since the first UK press publicity during August of this year in both Hull and Essex,  pre orders have been much higher than expected and Ivan has just ordered another 10,000 copies. Along with the pre orders, Ivan has received hundreds of letters from people who remember the original songs, either, because they have lost loved ones themselves, have special memories relating to the time of the original release, or just the fact that they enjoyed them first time round and thanked him for the re-release.
If you wish to stock this CD for the A.E.C.C. then, please ring 96-570-87-37 or e-mail JillandRon@terra.es

Perhaps you can help Ivan find an original 78” record of Santo Natale. He purchased one recently off of the e-bay web site and unfortunately upon it’s arrival, it was broken.
Ivan is hoping for a UK No One this Christmas. Let’s see if we can help it happen.