Martha Rose Simons was born to my brother Stu and sister-in-law Claire in January 2012, she was born with a serious heart condition and although battling hard she passed away on 24th April 2012.

Her passing devastated the family and in her memory Stu started raising money to support charities such as Tiny Tickers, he took on many gruelling cycling events including the 900+ mile London-Edinburgh-London event twice. He was at his happiest when raising money for charity whilst being on his bike as he knew that he was helping others in memory of baby Martha.

Stu was tragically taken from us in October 2022 after being involved in a traffic collision whilst cycling to work, this was only a few weeks after successfully finishing last years edition of London-Edinburgh-London in which he excelled. 

In order to carry on Stu's fundraising work I am planning on running Liverpool-Leeds Canal Race, a distance of 130 miles in less than 40 hours. The rules of this event state that I cannot stop/stay in one place for longer than 40 minutes otherwise I get disqualified! This is the sort of challenging event that Stu would be proud of and I feel that taking on this event in his and Martha's memory will have them both smiling down as I take on this ridiculous challenge.

Please sponsor me if you can as all funds raised for charities like Tiny Tickers can vastly improve the chances of survival for babies such as Martha and will drastically reduce the chances of other families from going the through the devastating loss of a child.

"A baby is born with a serious heart condition every two hours in the UK and despite congenital heart disease being one of the biggest killers of infants, only around half of congenital heart defects are picked up during routine prenatal scanning. With your help we can provide a safety net for the 1,000 babies each year that leave hospital with their heart defect undetected, increasing detection rates, improving a baby’s chances of survival and long-term quality of life"