My Story

In 2026, it will be ten years since I lost my Mum to lung cancer. I was just 26, she was just 56. She didn’t smoke, hers was the kind of lung cancer that strikes silently and unfairly, yet still carries stigma. I often feel I have to justify that fact, just to make people understand how devastating and indiscriminate this disease can be. My Mum was my biggest inspiration, in the way she lived, loved, and carried herself. Every time someone tells me I look like her, sound like her, or act like her, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride. Losing her was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, not just for me, but for her grandson, whom she never got to meet. She died at a time when access to life-extending treatment was determined by where you lived, a postcode lottery. Lung cancer remains the UK’s biggest cancer killer, claiming around 35,000 lives every year, more than breast, prostate and pancreatic cancers combined and yet it receives less than 10% of UK cancer research funding. I’m running the London Marathon to help change that. Your support means the world, and could help save others from going through what we did.