Uffington - 23rd August 2014

My son Ivo and I cycled through the war graves from Dunkirk to Brussels via Ypres and Ghent earlier this month, dedicating our ride to my mother and Ivo's grandmother, Candida Lycett Green, who was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer.  Brave as a lion, she never complained, either about the pain or the diagnosis.  She never said 'Life is unfair'. She just said 'Bugger, that hurt' when she felt a stab of pain. Or, 'Oh what a bloody bore' when we had to drive into Oxford for chemotherapy. Any nurse who came in contact with her fell in love with her. 'You'd hardly believe she was poorly!" said one who wrote to my Dad this week.'She never felt sorry for herself and she always had a joke for us'. 

Mum died at home on 19th August two weeks after she had returned from a holiday with all of us - Dad, my brothers and sisters, and some of the grandchildren - in her beloved Trebetherick, in North Cornwall. Throughout that sun-glowing week, she watched this fund grow. Ivo and I were preparing to set off. She insisted on tweeting the link to her followers and set about compiling a list of all her hundreds of email contacts. Every donation that came in was greeted with a 'hurrah' and another burst of energy as she waded through her address book looking for more likely donors.

Pancreatic cancer is known as the ‘silent cancer’ because it is so difficult to diagnose and is usually inoperable by the time it is detected. 

Pancreatic Cancer Action says: "We aim to improve survival for pancreatic cancer patients through earlier diagnosis.

Currently only 10 per cent of the 8,000 or so patients who are diagnosed each year in the UK are eligible for surgery; the only potential for a cure. This is because they are diagnosed with a cancer at a stage which is already too advanced

Decades of underfunding of pancreatic cancer means there are not any curative treatments on the horizon and, even if one were found in a laboratory today, it could take at least 10 to 15 years to reach the clinical environment and even longer to benefit patients. As surgery is currently the only potentially curative option for pancreatic cancer patients, we focus on getting more people diagnosed at a stage where surgery is a possibility."  

Your messages on this page provided joy and solace to Candida, and they continue to cheer on her family. PCA have received donations from her friends and colleagues but also from fans of her writing as well as complete strangers. Please keep the money coming in. The fund stays open till November I think, so we have a chance to raise even more money to help other people survive this deadly cancer.

Thank you

Love from Imo, Ivo and all the rest of Candida's family.