David Read who raised money for Alzheimers research with a charity ball

A Shoreditch businessman and musician has raised over £6,000 for Alzheimer’s Research UK by putting on a five-star corporate charity ball.

The sumptuous banquet and evening of non-stop entertainment at the Churchill Hyatt Regency Hotel in London’s West End was part of David Read’s ongoing project to raise £30,000 to pay for a complete pioneering dementia research project.

He began fundraising four years ago after his mother Janet died with Alzheimer’s disease, aged 83.

To try to come to terms with her death 58-year old David put his feelings about her long struggle with Alzheimer’s into song and recorded a charity album entitled I know that I should know you, and has so far raised £13,000.

It is believed there are 820,000 people living with dementia in the UK today, with numbers forecast to rise substantially in the next generation.

Miranda Mays, fundraising manager for Alzheimer’s Research UK, thanked David for his “outstanding support”.

“Dementia poses one of the greatest threats to public health now and in the future but funding for research still lags significantly behind other serious diseases, and we rely entirely on our amazing supporters like David to fund our world-class research,” she said.