Business owner backs charity sculpture trail as thank you for his years of cancer treatment

A business owner who is living with the same cancer that killed his father is now backing a campaign to help others by improving medical scanning services for a range of life-limiting conditions and is encouraging other businesses to do the same.

George Baker, managing director of KRL Group Limited, has adopted the Daisy Appeal as his company’s charity of the year. He will also sponsor a giant rat in the latest animal sculpture trail which will be unveiled across East Yorkshire during 2025, and he hopes other businesses will join in.

“Mischief of Rats” has been devised by the team which has previously delivered Larkin with Toads, A Moth for Amy and Puffins Galore! The inspiration for the latest project was Hull musician Mick Ronson, who died from cancer in 1993.

The guitarist first made an impact with the Hull-based band “The Rats” before earning international acclaim as a musician and producer, notably as a standout member of David Bowie’s band for five studio albums including The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

The mischief of vibrantly decorated rats, each standing six feet tall, will be appearing in locations across Hull and East Yorkshire in summer 2025. Sponsored by local business, the rats will be auctioned to raise much needed funds towards the cost of a new state-of-the-art scanner to add to the life-saving facilities that have been provided by the Daisy Appeal at Castle Hill Hospital since 2008.

George said: “I see the charity of the year commitment and the sponsorship of a rat as sound investments on behalf of the people living in our region. My dad died from myeloma in 1979. I’ve been ill with it since 2010 and that fact I’m still here is evidence of the medical advances that have been made.

“Castle Hill has done a lot for me. The consultants there have been brilliant and I felt I should give something back.”

George’s wife Nicola also lost her father to cancer, and the couple, who have two sons and two daughters, were thinking of lost loved ones and current friends undergoing treatment for serious illnesses when they met the Mischief of Rats team at the Castle Hill site in Cottingham.

George said: “Everybody has been touched by cancer at some point and people have a much better chance when it is found early. I was lucky because I had kidney stones, and the doctors looking into that found the cancer at a point where it wasn’t really active at all.”

KRL Group, which is based in Hull and also has an office in George’s home city of Leeds, employs nearly 30 people supplying office printer and copier solutions. George went into the industry in 1978 when he was just 18, he joined KRL Group as a start-up in 1995 and bought the business in 2009.

He said: “Our team will be taking on all sorts of challenges including cycling and running as part of our charity of the year campaign. The sponsorship of Mischief of Rats is specifically aimed at raising funds for the new scanner. The organisers have already secured quite a few business sponsors and hopefully they will sign up many more. People need to understand that these illnesses can strike anybody at any time – family, friends and colleagues – and we now have a better chance than ever to detect them.”

The Daisy Appeal has raised around £23m since it was set up in 2000 to fund treatment for cancer, heart disease and dementia. Milestones include the opening of the £8m Daisy Appeal Medical Research Centre in 2008, the £4.5m Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning Centre in 2014, and a £9m molecular imaging research centre (MIRC) in September this year.

The opening of the MIRC also signalled the launch of an appeal to raise £2.8m for a new scanner which will significantly increase capacity at the Jack Brignall Centre.

Rick Welton, one of the organisers of A Mischief of Rats, said: “We are excited and inspired to be partnering with such a vital charity.

“It will be 15 years in 2025 since we unveiled Larkin with Toads and we’ve raised thousands of pounds for various charities, but there’s a real urgency about this partnership with the Daisy Appeal.

“The Jack Brignall Centre currently carries out 4,500 scans every year but the team there are keen to upgrade it to a digital device capable of getting through 7,500 scans per year. We know from George’s experience how much difference early detection can make and we hope more businesses will join us to raise as much money as possible and help the Daisy Appeal get the new scanner.”

To find out more about how to sponsor a rat sculpture visit http://amischiefofrats.co.uk/

To contact Rick Welton email rick@amischiefofrats.co.uk or call 07411 272367.