Friends,

Many of you will know that just over a year ago, my close friends Sarah and Barney Baber’s lives changed overnight when their-then 6 year old son Hubert suffered a bleed on his brain completely out of the blue. Hubert was rushed to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and thanks to a team of amazing surgeons, doctors and nurses defied the odds and survived emergency neurosurgery. After a week in intensive care, Hubert remained very poorly and was on the Children’s Ward at Addenbrookes for 10 weeks. Sarah and Barney alternated nights with Hubert in hospital, whilst also caring for Beatrice, now 5, and Edward, who was 5 months old at the time.

In January 2023 Hubert secured a place at The Children’s Trust, Tadworth, a children’s brain injury rehabilitation centre in Surrey, where he spent 8 weeks learning to walk, talk, feed himself and read and write again (and play cricket!). Sarah and Barney took it in turns to live with him during this time which was a 6 hour round trip from their home in Suffolk.

The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with brain injury and neurodisability and relies on over 1000 volunteers a year to support their work. Each year they need to raise over £8 million to run vital services for children with brain injury. They offer residential rehabilitation at the centre in Tadworth, helping them restore lost skills or develop new ways of doing things, and supporting the family with their child’s newly acquired disability, transition home and plan for the future. In 2020/2021 53 children received intensive rehabilitation at their national specialist centre following a brain injury. They also offer specialist schooling for children with special needs including neurodisability and complex education, health, therapy and care needs.

Whilst the recovery process for Hubert continues, he has made incredible progress and on 15 March 2023 Hubert finally came home after 135 days. Hubert has now returned to school and is walking, talking, eating, running, playing with his brother and sister and friends, and enjoying being a 7 year old boy, none of which he could do in January last year. The Children’s Trust in Tadworth have played a huge part in Hubert’s recovery and rehabilitation.

More information on Hubert’s story can be found here:

https://www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/brain-injury-information/real-stories/avm-hubert

After witnessing firsthand the vital work of the charity through the Baber's personal experience I decided I wanted to do something to raise funds for the charity to help them continue to offer their services and support children and their families in the most challenging of times. So, I reached out to the Children's Trust in Tadworth and was able to secure a place in this year's London Marathon taking place on Sunday 21 April. I would really appreciate your support in helping me raise as much money as possible for the charity so they can continue with their incredible work. All donations will make such a difference and spur me on to cross the finish line!

Moral support is also appreciated so if anyone would like to do any training runs with me in the deepest darkest months of Jan – April then please shout and I would be most grateful!