Believe in Magic - Episode 1: Megan

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

A teenage girl with a brain tumour starts a charity for sick children. It captures the support of pop megastars, One Direction. But questions arise - is Megan really ill?

You're about to listen to brand new believe in magic if you're in the UK the whole series is available right now on BBC sounds I forgot to a little whoop. It's the after party everyone Radio one's Tina war the after party with Jamila and Alan It's 2012 and the BBC's annual celebration of inspiring teenagers has just finished. Now we have another inspirational young lady in the studio with us. She is these little bands for her charity and indeed the Allidh's now wearing the I've been wearing all day, I wore one on stage and she had like one direction wearing them. Hello Meg, how are you? Yes, good, thank you.

You had an amazing day. Sitting backstage with Alid and Jameela is 17-year-old Megan Barry. She's talking about her charity Believe in Magic, which helps grant wishes to seriously ill children. So what's your year being like? It's been, it's incredible year, really. Believe in magic has grown so much.

Now you were very ill when you decided to set up the charity, so can you tell us about why you wanted to do it? Yeah, well I've had 24 operations in the last few years. Wow. And I've been in and out of hospital and seen so many other very poorly children. And I just sort of realised how much the other children were going through and just wanted to do something to sort of give them the magical experiences back and to be able to be children again. Believe in magic has only been going for a few months but it's already granted hundreds of wishes to poorly children, putting on parties, taking kids and their families on holiday to places

like Disney. The charity also has the backing of several high-profile celebrities, including the world's biggest pop group at the time, One Direction. The band singers, including Harry Stiles, even where believe in Magic Merchandise to show their support. styles, even where believing magic merchandise to show their support. You have the boys, they're wearing a wristband in 40 countries, so now you're wristband by lonely companies with kills for that opportunity. I mean, that's actually ridiculous. How do you persuade these people to get involved? I think we've been so lucky.

I said of the charity last year and it's run by me and my mum. But I think people really like that because I'm 17 and because I've been poorly myself, it means they kind of get it more than if it's just, I don't really know, I think they get the story behind it. Megan sounds calm, composed and quietly excited. But her life is about to be ripped apart. Defending herself will have far-reaching consequences that nobody present that day could ever have predicted. For the last year, I've been investigating the story of Meghan Barry and her charity Believe in Magic. It's one of the most extraordinary, unusual and troubling stories I've ever come across.

It involves a battle between parents fighting for their children's lives, internet trolls, celebrity super fans, and one of the biggest pop groups in the world. and one of the biggest pop groups in the world. It plays out in hospitals, hotels, cruise ships, and in the very ordinary English suburbs. All of us fall ill sometimes, and when we do, we go online. For some, that's a life saver, a source of comfort and advice.

But for others, like Megan, it can turn into a trap with tragic consequences. It's so awful. But... Oh, God, when you hear all that, it's like, oh, my God. It becomes very... real. You stop thinking about all the investigation

and you're just thinking, what is this girl going through? I'm Jamie Bartlett. This is Believe in Magic, episode one, Megan. In many ways, Meghan Barrier is a fairly ordinary child, whose misfortune gives her the chance to do something extraordinary. She's born in 1995 in the upmarket Surrey town of Gilford to Jean and Pinder. Her parents separate when she's young, so Meghan grows up with her mum around the south of England. A primary school she's outgoing, friendly and a huge Disney fan. She's one of those kids who cues around the block to attend a premier. She dreams one day of being a pop star and

records a song in a professional studio with a couple of her friends. A pretty normal life really until she's 13 years old. Megan Barry Facebook 2013 In a blink of an eye my whole life changed when one morning I just couldn't wake up. By the time we arrived at A&E I was screaming in pain and was admitted immediately. For months Megan goes from hospital to hospital as medical specialists try to figure out what's

wrong, why is she's in constant pain, why she struggles to lie down flat. Finally, mechanism diagnosed with something called idiopathic intracranial hypertension. It's a rare and slightly mysterious brain condition where the brain fluid can't easily drain, which causes a build-up of pressure around the skull. Doctors sometimes struggle to diagnose I.I.H., the word idiopathic means of unknown origin. Megan starts to post on a dedicated internet forum, looking for advice from others going through the same thing as her. Natalie Garrett's daughter had recently been diagnosed with the same condition as Meg. I was constantly online looking for information, and then I found the IIAH forum,

and I posted on the forum about my daughter and got lots of replies, and one of the replies was from Meg. Meg would tell Natalie about the constant pain, the frequent hospital visits, and the painful procedures to reduce her brain pressure. In turn, Natalie would share her daughter Lana's experiences. Eventually, they meet offline too, because Meg starts to raise money for Natalie's I.I.H charity.

And no matter how much pain she's in, Megan is always positive, always upbeat. I can't explain that enough. What an amazing human being she was. She really was. She had more sympathy and love for people than I'd ever met anybody before. What sort of things made it going to be that impressive? Just so much patience and so much kindness and so much happiness and so much understanding

and so much support. And how was she with your children? They adored her and she adored them. She got on with children so so well, really, really well. It was beautiful to see. Megan's condition is so bad that she leaves school and her mother Jean becomes more or less her full-time carer. But Megan decides she wants to set up her own charity to help poorly children, people like her. Making other kids happy is what makes her happy.

Makes her forget her own troubles somehow. her own trouble somehow. And so she phoned me and she said, I'm going to start a children's charge and they stop me. Come on darling, you're so poorly. You can't do this. You know, just stop. Just stop and she was determined. It was her perseverance and her intelligence and her will to fight her disease?

Meghan, who was just 16 and her mother Jean, start their own charity. They call it, Believe in Magic. They start working 12, 14 hour days, trying to raise money to grant wishes for seriously ill children. Jean and Meg turn out to be brilliant fundraisers. The charity is small, it's really just the two of them, but they manage to do more than most charities 10 times the size. We had a wonderful party a couple of weeks ago. There are constant fundraisers, raffles, sponsored bike rides, just giving appeals.

There are lots of worthy causes out there asking for money. What sets believe in magic apart is Meg's unique talent for PR. She understands the modern importance of celebrity backing. So when she's invited to meet pop stars one direction, just after they come third on the X-Factor, she jumps at the chance. The band are moved by her story and agreed to help. Soon the one direction boys are doing regular fundraisers for believe in magic. One year, on a site called Prizio, they raised £400,000 for the charity by raffling off backstage

passes and the chance to meet them in person. Hi, it's Louis from One Direction. We've been working with Believe in Magic now for a few years and we think Meg and the team are absolutely incredible. So, to win a chance to see us think Meg and the team are absolutely incredible. So to win a chance to see us in London on the 26th of September, donate below. Thank you. Even the band's parents get involved.

Harry Styles' mum and twist, treks to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. That's 6,000 metres by the way, to help Megan Jean bring in more money. Louis Thomlinson and his mum even host a spectacular fundraising ball of the Natural History Museum in London. As the one direction fans gather outside and scream inside it's the poorly children who are the stars. On YouTube I can see they're dressed up in gowns and suits. Some accompanied by their nurses others midway through chemotherapy as they watch the famous magician Dynamo get their faces painted and listen to one direction singer Louis. I watch everybody who come in, it is an incredible privilege for me and my mom to work with me,

I do. No work is totally inspiring, I continue most of it. And Louise Mother Joanna. And it's on here that no Gina made, the brilliant introduction to their kindness. Thread one else, these two ladies are being charity. So, no admin, no drivers, no advertising department, they do everything themselves. They ask a living man to keep making that magic. Although Megan has a gift for charming celebrities and raising money, what she really loves is using the money in connections to grant wishes.

So I'm Lucy Petagini, I am 48 years old. I have four children, one sadly passed away, but she was five and a half. In 2008, Lucy received the news that no one wants to hear when her 18-month-old daughter Luna was diagnosed with cancer. People who've been through this talk of a life before and a life after a cancer diagnosis. How your old life disappears overnight, replaced by a new world of constant hospital trips,

complicated medical terminology, treatments, sleepless nights and support groups. Doctors will help you with the medical stuff, but they can't do much to fix the sudden and desperate emotional upheaval that accompanies it. The stuff that happens outside the hospital doors. And that's where believing magic steps in. So whilst in the hospital with Luna, I think the nurses referred us to the charity.

Lucy's daughter was being treated at London's famous children's hospital, Great Ormond Street, the same place where Megan was a patient. They also knew of her charity. They would basically write or send an email to the charity and tell them a little bit of the outline about the child and to say, if there's anything you could do to offer

a nice treat to this family, please, this is their details. With believe in magic, the treats often took the form of exuberant parties. So tell me what it was like the first. Oh, it was amazing. So you said pirates and princesses. Pirates and princesses, the kids were spoiled rotten, as I said, there was entertainers, there was a man with animals,

the kids, obviously all the children dressed up, and every single child there felt like they were so important, and they weren't poorly, they weren't in a hospital. It was, honestly, it was out of this world. And did you go to any of the other events that they were putting on around that time? We did, so we were invited to Buckingham Palace to decorate the Christmas tree. What was that like? Amazing. All the children were given beautiful handmade dresses that were made by the, whoever made the bridesmaid dresses for

Kate and William. They had dresses delivered to them and shoes and we all met at a hotel I think it was the Langham and limousines or bentes I think it was took a saw and a massive convoy to Buckingham Palace. Lucy remembers Meghan would do anything to make a child happy. Sometimes Jean would tell Meg off because she'd offered to pay for everyone's train fares or promised to find parents' hotels if they didn't want to travel home after an event. Jean would like roll a rise a lot, but Meg wouldn't say no to anyone. When Lucy's daughter Luna was having a difficult week, Megan found out that Luna loved the children's entertainer Mr. Tumble.

A few days later, Megan managed to get Mr. Tumble to record Luna a personal get-well message. She did this kind of thing for countless children. We heard this a lot, how hard Megan worked for others while ill herself. Natalie Garrett remembers the moment when she heard that Meghan's health problems were even more serious than first thought. She was at a pub in Surrey, and Jean had some terrible news about Meghan's brain condition. I got there late, so they'd already told my friends. They told me, my friends told me, or Meg's been diagnosed with a maturity tumor.

And it hit me so hard. And I remember us all ended up going outside and crying. So Meg didn't see us cry because we thought, of all the people, you know, this poor girl, she's been through so much and she's got I.I. which is bad enough anyway to be diagnosed with a tumor. Did you speak to me? Yeah, I gave them hugs and cried with them and oh, it was, you know, what were they saying? The gene was like, it's like the worst blow we could have, you know,

she's been suffering long enough and now we've got this and we don't know what the doctors are going to do about it. Despite the tumour, Meg worked tirelessly to grant wishes. One supporter remembers Meg and running believe in magic while in and out of hospital, arriving at events with a huge bag of medication and arranging gifts from her own hospital bed. On tough days, Megyn Jean would sometimes post updates online about her condition, finding comfort in their thousands of online supporters. Twitter, March 2012, in a lot of pain waiting for an urgent MRI at Great Ormond Street. Wish you could follow my 16-year-old daughter who has a brain tumour. Could you please tweet Meghan as she has a big hospital appointment about her tumour? When David Cameron gives her an award for her work in 2015, the then Prime Minister sums

it up perfectly. Meg has shown such extraordinary courage to put aside her own illness and focus on granting the dreams of others. But Meg's condition worsens. It gets so serious that the treatment she needs isn't available through the National Health Service in the UK. Meg needs specialised treatment in the US. Meg and Jean have spent the last four years working for little or no money to get believe in magic off the ground. They can't afford to go to the US and pay for this expensive private treatment.

So they do what a growing number of people in this desperate situation have to do. They try to raise the money online. Jean says it's the hardest thing they've ever done, but they have no choice. Welcome to the Just Giving Page for Meg, a 19-year-old girl who has a brain tumour and desperately needs your help so she can have life-saving proton radiotherapy. Starting today, January the 14th, we have just two weeks to raise 120,000 pounds so that Meg can start the urgent treatment that she needs. We're asking anyone and everyone who is able to help us. Please help give her this chance and get her the treatment that she needs. With much love, Jean, Meg's very proud mum. with much love, Jean, Meg's very proud mum.

They raised the money and traveled to the US. But soon after that trip, Meg and Fools desperately ill again and the pair are forced to go back online once more. But while Meg and Jean are fundraising for Meg's life-saving treatment, something unexpected happens. A friend of Meg and Jean's, who's trying to help them raise money,

opens her Facebook one day to find a strange message from a woman called Sarah Smith. Hi, what hospital is Meghan being treated at? I'm doing this to protect you. I don't believe that Meghan is at death's door. I'm not a crazy person. I think you need to look into this more and find out which hospital Megan is being treated at and who her doctors are. Sarah Smith has no backstory. Her Facebook profile has hardly any friends or interests or or previous posts. No one from the child cancer community knows her, which is unusual because

this is a small world. I've spent years studying online behaviour, internet trolls, dark net drugs markets, scams. When people hide behind the screen, they're capable of doing awful things that they've never done in real life, and trying to stop someone raising money for life-saving medical treatment is low, even by the internet standards. But Sarah Smith keeps asking more questions. Well it's just one question, over and over.

Does Megan Barry really have a brain tumor? Asking that question starts a dizzying chain of events that involves private detectives, internet trackers and accusations of murder. The answer to that simple question, when it's far darker than anyone could have predicted. My hospital address is Fattahawk humans' white pit climb here into my heart. I don't know what you want and nothing will probably ever begin, nothing for you. I have every hope in the world that you will see how wrong you've been and I apologise and I'm very sorry to see that if you don't you'll be hearing from us very, very soon. The Leven Magic is a BBC studio's podcast. It's presented by me, Jamie Bartlett.

The series producer is Ruth Mayer. The producer is Lucy Greenwell. Music by Jeremy Wormsley, sound designed by Peregrine Andrews. The executive producer is Inis Bowen. Archive in this episode is from Brooklyn's Radio and BBC Archive. you