In 2004, I was working in Bangladesh for an NGO. The day I flew out to Dhaka, my Dad had driven me down to Heathrow from my home town of Boston in Lincolnshire, together with my Mum and Steve (my brother). The photo of the four of us on this page was taken at Heathrow that day. However, we'd almost not been able to make the journey as Dad had been suffering from terrible back pain which had left him lying flat out on the living room floor for the previous few days. But I think he was determined not to let me down so he had dosed up on pain killers and battled through it.

A few months into my stay in Bangladesh, it became obvious from phone calls back home that Dad wasn’t well. He was still in a lot of pain and had also started feeling and being sick. He’d finally overcome his
male stubborn ‘I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong with me’ stance and seen the Doctor who had diagnosed a stomach ulcer, but the medicine he’d been given wasn't working. I ended up deciding to come home early from Bangladesh. I can remember Mum and Dad standing on the drive as I arrived and being stunned by how grey, thin and ill my Dad looked. I knew straight away that something was very wrong. I made an appointment the next day to see his GP myself and begged him to send Dad for more tests - no-one seemed to be taking it seriously or urgently enough and I felt desperate for someone to just do something. 

A week or so later, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and the immediate priority was for him to have surgery. At the same time, I was moving to London to start a graduate programme with P&G – I had been accepted onto the graduate scheme almost 8 months earlier, before anything had started happening with Dad. It was awful timing, but we talked about and decided I should do it as planned and come home at weekends to be with Dad. On the third day of my induction programme, I got a phone call from Mum saying that Dad’s key hole investigation that morning (in preparation for his full surgery) had shown that his cancer had spread all over his abdomen and that it was therefore inoperable. My Dad was terminally ill and had been given between two and 12 months to live. 

I sat in a meeting room in what was still a very unfamiliar building with unfamiliar people, and cried my eyes out. The poor guy who had been assigned to be my ‘buddy’ when I’d joined P&G two days earlier, sat with me as I tried to process what I’d just been told. I kept saying over and over that it meant my Dad wouldn’t be there on my wedding day to give me away if I ever got married.

The next few months were a blur spent going backwards and forwards between London and Boston to spend as much time as I could with my Dad. He was too ill to have any treatment as chemotherapy would have made him more sick than he already was. It was absolutely heart breaking to see the suffering he went through - unable to keep anything down, constantly being sick, morphine doses to control the pain that were so strong that they left him completely confused. He became so thin and weak that he couldn’t walk and in the end he couldn’t even hold his head up. My incredible, smart, sarcastic, witty, strong-willed and stubborn Dad had everything taken away from him. The pain of watching someone you love suffer like this is impossible to express in words. 

Two months and one day after he was given between two and 12 months to live Dad sadly passed way. 

On the day of his funeral, thousands of amateur radio enthusiasts all over the world logged into the pioneering UI-View platform he had created for the amateur radio community, and placed themselves as individual GPS dots that collectively spelt out his call sign across the Atlantic Ocean (this image is also in the photos I’ve shared). Two people flew over from Australia to present the first ever ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ to be granted for services to Amateur Radio. 

I had never realised until then the extent of the contribution my Dad was making in the world. Before he died he decided to give away the software for free and instead encouraged people to make a voluntary donation to their local cancer charity. It was then that I declared an ambition to one day work for a cancer charity, and 12 years later that goal became a reality when I joined Macmillan Cancer Support in March.

I truly believe that Macmillan changes hundreds of thousands of lives every year through the work that we do. By 2030, there will be 4 million people in the UK living with cancer and there is an urgent need to ensure that we can be there for everyone who needs us. People living with cancer need practical, emotional and financial support as well as help to get through treatment and beyond. Last year Macmillan reached 5.8 million people living with and affected by cancer in the UK, but there are still so many more people who need our help. We cannot do this without the incredible support of people fundraising for us and donating to our cause.

On Saturday 27th August, I will be doing the South Coast Challenge and hiking 100km of the South Downs Way to raise as much money as I can for Macmillan. Any donation is welcome and very much appreciated - it all makes a difference.

My final words are to my Dad. Thank you for everything you gave me and for being such an inspiration. You showed me what it means to work selflessly for a cause you truly believe in and the value of having a purpose in life that has nothing to do with money.

I miss you and I love you xxx