Hello,
if you don't know my name's Toby and I'll be shaving my head for St. Richard's Hospice and Cancer Research UK on Friday the 4^th December.

I want to do it in memory a man called Martyn Wakeling who my mum married last August in Crete, by the time we were coming back home Martyn was feeling slightly ill and Mum told him to visit a Doctor. After some tests the Doctors found what's called a Secondary Tumour (or part a tumour spread from a tumour in a different part of the body) in his Liver.

Martyn was diagnosed on the 24^th of September and he died on the 30^th
of January without a chance of treatment that could cure him. The intervening months were difficult for the family, Martyn collapsing on Christmas Day being the most terrifying moment of my life, and Mum was hit especially hard as she nursed him throughout his final months. But St. Richard's Hospice made it so much easier, providing the Ground floor bed that Martyn spent his last month in and eventually died in.

It is thanks to St. Richard's Hospice that Martyn died surrounded by the woman who loved him most in the world, his best friend and a pair of nurses who visited him regularly to ease his passing and help comfort the family.

Martyn's death didn't leave sadness in me in the conventional sense, but instead I just felt a responsibility, I wanted to make it mean something more. I kicked around the idea for a while until this finally came out of my mouth. I want to put something back into St. Richard's and as for Cancer Research; this isn't just about helping people through horrible times in their lives, it's about helping to make sure no one has to go through it full stop.

My school, Pershore High, have been great and there's going to be a load of other events while this is happening in our hall. My Form Tutor, Mr. Knight, has also volunteered to do the head-shaving with me, and the school has promised for every pound you pay for St. Richard's, they'll pay a pound for Cancer Research.

So why should you pay? Well, I could appeal to you as human beings but we're teenagers, not humans. Odds are you either want to call Mr. Knight and I ‘slap heads’ or you want to rip the school off for as much as possible. Then again, you might do it out of the kindness of your heart in which case, prove me wrong, by all means.

Please give generously and show up at the hall on the Friday the 4^th
to show your support. Thank you.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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