UPDATE - Issue 39 - Winter 2010
Fundraising
Portrait of a Prostate UK supporter by Professor Roger Kirby
I will always remember the day I broke the news to Andrew Etherington that he was suffering from prostate cancer and needed an operation to cure it. He looked aghast and muttered that he couldn’t undergo surgery because he had just got a place in the year 2000 London Marathon. ‘Oh yes you can’, I said, ‘and what’s more, I will run it with you’. Three of us, myself, Andrew and another patient, Doug Davidson (‘three men and one prostate’) completed the race and raised almost £100,000 for Prostate UK.
Since then Andrew has faithfully accompanied us every year on an annual challenge to raise funds for the charity. Two further London Marathons, in successive years, then summiting Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kinabalu, respectively. Following that, trekking coast to coast by Hadrian’s Wall, walking the full length of the West Highland Way and most recently a grueling hike across the High Fells of the Lake District from St Bees to Kirkby-Stephen. By means of these Challenges over the past decade as a team we have raised more than £3 million for the cause.
Next year Andrew and the team, including other grizzled veterans, such as John Dick and Roger Plail, as well as my son Joe, are planning to walk 100 miles across the Northern section of the GR20 in Corsica, said to be the toughest trail in Europe. Please either join us or support us. Prostate UK desperately needs the funds to stop prostate disease ruining lives.