Craig Shergold: The TV Movie
Updated 11/12/01 — The strange but inspiring story of Craig Shergold — the boy whose life was saved by a chain letter that won't die — debuted as a made-for-TV movie November 10, 2001 on the PAX Channel. It was slated to be shown again on Thanksgiving.

"The Miracle of the Cards" stars Thomas Sangster as the eight-year-old British youth who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 1989. Thanks to a phenomenally successful chain letter campaign launched by family and friends, within a year he went down in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the recipient of the largest number of sympathy cards ever sent to one person. Also thanks to the chain letter, Craig Shergold caught the attention of a philanthropist who offered to pay for the surgery that ultimately cured his disease.

By 1991 Craig was once again a healthy, happy boy with just one small problem: the sympathy cards wouldn't stop coming. And they're still coming in, to this day, more than ten years and 350 million cards later. Chain letters, it turns out, are far more difficult to stop than to start.

Robert Woods, one of the producers of the film, says he hopes it will not only inspire people but finally stem the tide of unwanted mail once and for all.

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