Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

This year I have decided to run the London Marathon for Mind as a way to help raise awareness for mental health and I hope that by sharing my story, I might encourage people to speak out to ask for help, or to recognise signs that a friend/family member/colleague may be struggling and doesn't know where to turn.

Some of you maybe be aware that my brother Neil suffered from mental health issues for all of his adult life, and as a family we struggled to get the right help and support for him and for us, and sadly he died in 2011 from an accidental overdose.  This was such a traumatic event for us all, then my mum passed away in 2014 - she just couldn't cope with the sadness we all felt.

Over the past three years my beautiful daughter Kate has been dealing with significant mental health issues; anxiety, depression, school refusal, suicidal thoughts and self harm.  This has had such an impact on all of us, but luckily we have access to excellent health care professionals who are helping her and us to work through the struggles.  I have also recently begun my own therapy to help me deal with all the feelings and emotions I have around everything that I have been going through for many years, and a big shout out to all the friends who have been there/reached out/given me space/held me up over the years, I couldn't do it without you  💕

But my best therapy through all of this has been to run, so I want to ask everyone to help support me in this massive target to run a marathon, and make a donation to Mind, who do such a good job supporting vulnerable people and their families when they have no-one else to turn to.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.