Craig Shergold (born 24 June 1979) is a Briton and former cancer patient who is most famous for receiving over 350 million greeting cards, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Although he is healthy and alive today, variations of the plea for greeting cards sent out on his behalf in 1989 are still floating around the Internet, making the plea one of the most persistent urban legands. June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... The term Briton may have the following meanings: In an historical context: The indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain in pre-Roman times. ... When normal cells are damaged or old they undergo apoptosis; cancer cells, however, avoid apoptosis. ... A greeting card is an illustrated, folded card usually featuring a message of greeting or other sentiment. ... The Guinness Book of Records (or in recent editions Guinness World Records, and in previous US editions Guinness Book of World Records) is a reference book published annually, containing an internationally recognized collection of world records, both human achievements and the extrema of the natural world. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Urban legends are a kind of folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them (see rumor). ...

In 1989, Shergold, then aged eight, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. His family issued a chain letter, requesting that greeting cards be sent to Shergold so that he could make it into the Book of Records. As a result, 19 million greeting cards were sent by the next year, and 35 million by the end of 1991. American millionaire John Kluge learned of Shergold’s plight, and arranged for him to have brain surgery to remove the tumor, an operation that was successful. Terminal illness is a medical term popularized in the 20th century for an active and progressive disease which cannot be cured and is expected to lead to death or a disease for which curative treatment is not viewed as appropriate. ... A brain tumor is any mass created by an abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells either found in the brain (neurons, glial cells, epithelial cells, myelin producing cells, etc. ... A family of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family is a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups, typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and in some cases ownership (as was the case in the Roman... A typical chain letter consists of a message that attempts to induce the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to two or more new recipients. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A millionaire is a person who has a net worth or wealth of more than one million United States dollars, euros, UK pounds or units of a comparably valued currency. ... John Werner Kluge (born September 21, 1914) is an entrepreneur who was born in Chemnitz, Germany, best known as a television industry mogul in the United States. ... A typical modern surgery operation For other meanings of the word, see Surgery (disambiguation) Surgery (from the Greek cheirourgia - lit. ...

Nonetheless, the chain letter continued to make its way around the Internet and millions of greeting cards continued to flow to Shergold’s home. The family halted mail delivery, and later moved. The home was given its own postal code because of the volume of mail sent there. Mail being sent to that address is now being recycled. The Book of Records has retired this record as they do not want anyone to try to top Shergold’s feat. A British pillar box The postal system is a system by which written documents typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages containing other matter, are delivered to destinations around the world. ... A postal code is a series of letters and/or digits appended to a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail. ... The international symbol for recycling. ...

Over the years, the chain letter has undergone many permuations. Shergold’s name has been changed to varations as “Craig Shelford” or “Greg Sherwood”. In addition, the Shergold letter has been the target of numerous parodies. In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ...

In 2001, the PAX cable channel showed The Miracle of the Cards, a made-for-TV movie starring Thomas Sangster as Shergold. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... i: Independent Television, or simply i, is a broadcast and cable television network first broadcast on August 31, 1998 under the name Pax. ... A television movie (also known as a TV movie, TV-movie, feature-length drama, made-for-TV movie, single drama, telemovie, telefilm, or two-hour-long drama) is a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network. ... Thomas Sangster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

External links

• Article on Snopes
• User's Guide to Craig Shergold
• Information from the Make-A-Wish Foundation
• Entry in the EFF’s Guide to the Internet
• A plea to stomp out the chain letter from Gene Spafford in The AFU and Urban Legends Archive.
• Information from Guinness World Records