Exclusive: Elle Mulvaney, who portrays Amy Barlow on Coronation Street, talked candidly about her motivation for joining the Wigan MS Therapy Center as an ambassador.
Coronation Street star Elle Mulvaney, who plays Amy Barlow on the ITV soap, has become a patron for Wigan MS Therapy Centre off-screen after seeing first hand the effects of multiple sclerosis (MS) on a family member. The actress is currently trying to raise both money and awareness for the centre when she’s not hard at work on the cobbles.
Speaking exclusively she said: “I think there’s not much information about MS and I think unless you know somebody who’s been affected by it [you don’t know about it]. Before a member of my family was diagnosed with it, we’d never heard of it, we didn’t know what it was.”
“It was only when it affected our lives that we then had to do our research on it. So I just think the more awareness we raise on it, the more people will actually be interested in it. Because obviously it affects people at different levels, but it’s a really debilitating illness that affects people’s entire lives and it never goes away.” As an example of the misconceptions of the condition, Elle recalled witnessing people assuming her family member was drunk rather than living with MS as they couldn’t differentiate.
According to the NHS multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. It’s a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, although it can occasionally be mild.
Elle got involved with the centre through her family’s love of rugby. “Me and my family always go to watch the rugby, and we always sit in the same seats, and we ended up getting really friendly with the people who sat in the seats next to us and they run the charity,” she revealed.
“MS is something that’s affected them quite closely as it turns out his wife has MS. And they said to me: ‘Do you want to be a patron for the charity?’ So I thought, ‘Okay, well, I’ll go and see what this is all about.’
Speaking about the centre’s facilities she explained: “There aren’t any centres up north for MS. There’s only ones down south, which are funded by the government. So this one was set up for people who are living with MS, and they have facilities like a fully accessible gym.
“They have comfy couches so people can come and they can just talk. They also provide things like physiotherapists for people, and they have people who come in and they can do haircuts.
“Sometimes it can be really difficult for people with MS to have normal things like haircuts because, just as an example, it might really hurt their neck to keep it lent back for a certain amount of time. So they have people come in and they’ll do it for either discounted or for free, and they fund it all themselves because they don’t have any funding whatsoever from the government.
“I agreed to be a patron for them, and since then, I ran the Manchester 10k and I raised over £1000 for them on that run, which I was really pleased about,” she reflected.
“And then in the past couple of weeks, they had their annual summer ball, and me and my family raised, I think, three and a half grand for them. So yeah, I mean, it’s obviously not the biggest amount of money in the world, but to a charity like them, who don’t have any funding from anybody else it means a lot, even just doing something small.”
Elle, who has played the role of Amy since 2010, is currently in the middle of training for a half marathon with her sister Georgia which is her next project to raise money for them
“Not many people have been roped in [to help] yet,” she confessed, “but they will be! For my 10k loads of people were roped into helping.
“Loads of people from work donated, loads of my friends and family donated, which I was really pleased about and it’s the power of social media as well. When you post it online, so many people are really generous and it honestly restores your faith in humanity a little bit when you see everybody coming together for a cause, even just to support you and just say, good luck.”
