For those of you who have not seen me for a while, you may notice something different about me when we finally do meet. Yes, my times are slower on Strava for running due to my bigger belly but that’s not the difference I am talking about!!

Since Dec 2020 and Covid lockdown 2.0 I decided to stop cutting my hair, some will say that this was just an excuse by me to save myself a bit of money (it certainly has helped!), others will say it was to annoy my wife as she absolutely can’t stand it (again that was the original motivation!) but in fact, I really did it for the Little Princess Trust & Shays Smiles.

The Little Princess Trust is a charity that provides free real hair wigs to children and young people, up to 24 years old who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other conditions. I’m going to donate my hair to them to make a wig to help someone who has lost theirs.

To donate my hair I am planning to ‘brave the shave’ and around the 21st of May have all my flowing locks cut off to raise money for a charity close to my heart called Shays Smiles.

Shay’s Smiles is a charity that has been set up in memory of my 13yr old nephew who passed away in Sept 2020 from a glioblastoma brain tumour cancer. Shay always had time and a smile for everyone, even during his own battles he was helping others and wanted to make a difference, the charity that has been set up in his honour is to help & support children and their families access specialist Doctors and healthcare facilities and to lobby for additional funding to improve diagnostic testing and research into this illness. Despite being the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40 spending on Brain Tumour research lags considerably behind other types of cancer research. Of the £669 million national spend on cancer research in 2019/20 Brain Tumour research represents only 2% (only 1% of spend over 18 years) of the spend falling some way behind others such as breast, prostate and leukaemia cancers - this needs to change. Shay's Smiles are supporting this by committing to sponsoring a PhD Researcher for the next 4 years at a cost of £140,000, on top of supporting families affected by this awful illness. Shay’s Smiles is a member charity affiliated with the Brain Tumour Research Charity.

As I’ve been growing my hair I’ve sadly heard of others in my family and friends circle who have been impacted by cancer. Whilst the monies I raise from this ‘hair’ brained idea of mine are for one particular charity, in my heart, I am doing it for anyone who is battling cancer, I’d love to help all the charities but by supporting one I am confident that any breakthrough they can help achieve with their work can be shared and used by others in their research in battling this indiscriminate illness.

Losing all my hair is not an easy task for me, I have some pretty big scars over and across my head from an operation I had when I was 18, I will get some funny looks and will probably have to wear a cap to cover these but I know that my hair will grow back, for sufferers of cancer I want to do this to give them one less thing to have to worry about.

I wanted to make this post funny and attention-grabbing but as I started writing it quickly became apparent that there is absolutely nothing funny about this subject. I know things are tough for everyone at the moment with everything increasing in price and the demands for your money from many charities supporting whats happening across the world right now due to Covid or the war in Ukraine, but if you can spare something to support me to support Shay’s Smiles I would be eternally grateful.

All monies raised will go directly to the charity, you may be asked to add a small donation to cover platform fees from JustGiving. If you work for an employer who does employee matching please donate and ask them to match your generosity, I can supply whatever information you need to do this.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support

Paps (Preetam)