Hi all, I wanted to share this sad, but inspirational story about Billy The Brave, please read to the end... it's worth it, (you will need tissues..) and I hope you can help this cause in some small way.
Meet Billy Thompson
Known to many as Billy the Brave, Billy was a little boy from Surrey with an enormous love of Queen. Queen's music was the soundtrack to Billy's childhood. He'd dance around with his little red guitar, convinced he was Brian May.
Then, in November 2023, aged just four, Billy was diagnosed with
Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), an incurable childhood brain tumour. As hospitals, MRI scans and radiotherapy became his new normal, Queen became his escape. Every journey to The Royal Marsden meant one thing. "Bohemian Rhapsody!"
"Louder!" Billy would shout, air-guitaring from the back seat. For
those few precious minutes, he wasn't a little boy with a terminal
illness. He was just Billy.
When Yoto released its Queen card, the team reached out to Brian May, who recorded personal messages just for Billy. Those messages brought him enormous happiness at a time when joy was becoming increasingly hard to find.
Before he became ill, Billy had asked Father Christmas for a drum kit. But he got so sick, so poorly, he quietly said he didn't want it
anymore. Then, driving home from his final radiotherapy session, One Vision came on.
Billy suddenly sat up and shouted: "This is why I want to play drums! Like Roger Taylor!"
His shiny red drum kit arrived that Christmas, but he wasn't well
enough to enjoy it for long.
As Billy's got worse, Queen became the soundtrack to his final weeks. Unable to walk or move his hands and arms, he couldn't play with his toys anymore; instead, he'd lie for hours listening to the band's back catalogue on an old ghetto blaster using his mum's well-worn CDs.
The final album Billy listened to was A Day at the Races. When Billy died peacefully at home in his mum's arms, those songs were quietly playing beside him. The CD still sits in Billy's ghetto blaster in his bedroom. It hasn't played a song since.
At his funeral, family and friends arrived to Long Away, before saying goodbye with Bohemian Rhapsody. Billy was just fifteen days away from his fifth birthday.
But his story didn't end there.
In Billy's memory, his family founded Billy's Battalion, a registered
UK charity funding research into DIPG, with one mission: to help make sure one day another family doesn't have to lose their child to this devastating disease.
And now every year, on the anniversary of Billy's death, family,
friends and his beloved local rugby club gather together to sing
Bohemian Rhapsody in his memory. At exactly the same time, thousands of Billy's supporters join in from their homes across the world.
Queen's music became woven into Billy's story. And today, it continues to be woven into his legacy.
Billy's mum, Ellie, says:
"Billy couldn't be saved, but because of him we're now helping fund the research that we hope will one day save other children. Queen gave Billy so much more than music. The kindness Brian, Roger and everyone around the band showed him is something our family will never, ever forget. There are now two reasons we're Queen fans: the music, of course... and the incredible people behind it."
If Billy's story has touched you, we'd be incredibly grateful if you'd consider supporting Billy's Battalion. Every donation, no matter how small, helps fund pioneering research into DIPG.
💛 Donate: www.justgiving.com/page/billysbattalionofficial
"Hear my song
Still think of me the way you've come to think of me
The nights grow long
But dreams live on
Just close your pretty eyes, and you can be with me
Dream on"
🌐 Find out more: www.billysbattalion.org
📱 Follow Billy's journey:
Instagram: @billysbattalion | @ellielexie
Facebook: Billy's Battalion
