THERE are two seats which loom large in my memory so far as Acorns is concerned, and I could take you to both of them now.

One was the fibreglass seat of a single-seater racing car, on a narrow strip of tarmac close to the Gower Peninsula on a windy April Sunday in 1991.

The other was behind an ordinary desk I was sitting at when I opened an ordinary envelope on an ordinary day in early 1985.

Nothing about either hinted that a large chunk of my life was about to head off in a new direction, that I'd be practically powerless to the outcome, or that I'd be sitting in another newspaper office, 17 years on, telling you about it.

The letter explained how a group of ordinary people in and around Birmingham were campaigning to build a hospice for children suffering from disorders which made their life-expectancy tragically brief. The long and short of it has stayed with me. It was this.

The National Health Service was devoted to making patients better, not providing respite and terminal care. Children with life-limiting conditions were occupying beds which youngsters with acute illnesses might have been in. They weren't receiving the kind of specialist treatment they needed.

I realised a number of things, but mostly how fortunate I was, and how ignorant. And how these ordinary people weren't ordinary at all.

A few days later, I met John Overton in the plush Birmingham offices where he ran his own consultancy. He's one of the extraordinary people whose names have been ringed in my contacts book ever since.

He enlarged on what the letter had told me. He also inadvertently demonstrated that my ignorance plumbed greater depths than I'd care to admit.

If my memory serves me well, I left his office aware that a charitable trust was about to be established which aimed to put a purpose-built hospice on land next to Selly Oak Hospital. The "home-from-home" would look after children and families regardless or colour, creed, religion or class.

By the end of the afternoon, our office artist had designed the West Midlands Children's Hospice Trust's first logo, a teddy bear. We'd needed a motif to accompany the fund-raising column I'd agreed to run once a week. John suggested a teddy because it's a universal symbol of comfort. Archie, the artist, added a dickie bow, for good measure.

Over the next three years, that teddy became a constant companion, not just for me, but for hundreds of thousands of people across the Second City, and the communities beyond.

It was there when the land deal in Oak Tree Lane was sealed. It was there when the Birmingham Daily News was challenged to "do a Band Aid", and organise a fund-raising record.

It was there when a frail widow decided to give the wedding ring she'd worn for 60 years to the Trust for it to sell.

It was there when the bitter rivalries of the city's many media organisations were set aside in the quest for a name for the unbuilt hospice.

It was there as thousands and thousands of newspaper readers, television viewers and radio listeners - maybe hundreds of thousands - embarked on their own walks, sales and marathons and began to take the idea of the place to their hearts.

It was there, too, when the likes of ELO's Jeff Lynne, Dave Morgan and Richard Tandy joined UB40, the CBSO, The Moody Blues, Joan Armatrading and a half-dozen other Brummie artists when the fruit of the Band Aid challenge - the compilation album Action - was recorded and released.

It was there when the jeweller who'd valued the old lady's ring gave her the treasured item back, and made a donation to the cause in her name.

It was there when a young Evening Mail reader came up with the name Acorns.

It was there when the hospice appeal was officially launched with £1m already in the bank on January 26, 1986 - tragically, the day of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, which we watched horrified but mesmerised on TVs in Birmingham's Grand Hotel.

And it was there when the Princess of Wales opened the hospice in 1988. Sadly, I wasn't. Newsdesk duty called!

If I wrote a list of the remarkable moments and people I've met since, courtesy of this common bond, it would cover this page, and a few more besides.

But let me tell you about one. In 1990, there was a lad called Luke who used to rip around Acorns in a wheelchair decorated with more Formula One decals than your average McLaren racer.

I confess to meeting him with trepidation, not because he had a muscle-wasting condition, but because I had my two young daughters with me.

They'd raised £120 - with a little help from Grandma - by holding jumble sales at the end of the drive. We still occasionally utter the words "what happened to...?" and break off, knowing that it disappeared from a trestle table that summer.

Suffice to say that the girls handled the occasion far better than I. Luke and they chatted as if they'd known each other for years. They treated him as if he were a schoolfriend, and why not?

It led to two things. For my final three years in Birmingham, I'd make a Christmas Eve trip home via Selly Oak, to see a few friends and hand over whatever gifts we'd received for the children from readers. There were many.

And those F1 decals took me to where we started this written recollection - the cockpit of a single-seater Scarab Formula Vee racing car on the grid at Pembrey, Dyfed.

A careless remark to a friend - that's what I told my wife, anyway - prompted a second challenge. I'd covered motorsport for years, but I'd never parked my backside in a racing machine, not on a grid, waiting for the lights to turn green.

When you're looking around you at 25 other young and not-so young hotheads, then gaze 300 yards to the hairpin corner at the end of the straight, you're entitled to ask "what in the name of Nigel Mansell am I doing here?"

Preparations for the 10-race season I'd organised had included taking advice from a close friend who made it to the cusp of Formula One, but found out he didn't have what it took to make that final leap.

Knowing about that hairpin's disconcerting casualty rate, I'd asked him what gear he thought I should employ to make a proper exit.

I was thinking of first or second.

"Reverse," he said. He was right.

So what was I doing there, apart from about 20mph?

Acorns had burrowed its way under my skin, that's what.

Ten 10-lap races, 10 sponsors paying £10 per completed lap - the maths had to be easy - and we raised £10,000 to landscape the gardens at Acorns.

John Overton's still chief executive of Acorns, a man as consumed by the hospice as any.

Colleagues visiting Selly Oak have had a garden gnome pointed out to them, then an explanation that it's named after me.

I treat the story with suspicion. Anyway, if it's true, the gnome would have been a better racing driver than I turned out to be. Still, I had fun.

And that's the only way I can describe this remarkable pull.

From the first day I set foot in Acorns, what's stayed with me is that the place is dedicated to making the most of life. It is about fun. It's about living. It's just that the opposite is a constant companion too.

In 1995, the Evening News joined forces with our colleagues at BBC Hereford & Worcester to promote the counties' Acorns fund-raising group, to inform readers and listeners about its purpose. And to have fun.

We held an Auction of Dreams. We organised an Antiques Roadshow. That raised a few bob too, thank you very much.

I'd wager my 1991 motor-racing prize money - £37.40 - that everyone who read about Acorns then, then dug a little deeper, will still be in its irresistible grip.

Although the ultimate miracle of cure is beyond all of the families who'll come to rely upon Acorns Worcester, the care, the expertise and the devotion they'll receive there will come close.

But don't take my word for it.