I am taking on the London Marathon 2024 for Frank’s Fund, a dedicated fund of the Bone Cancer Research Trust.

Five years ago, I was contacted by the family of a boy called Frank, who had gone to the same High School as me, but had tragically just passed away due to a bone cancer called Ewing Sarcoma. He was 14 years old.

Since then, I have had the real privilege to become a patron of Frank's Fund, a dedicated fund of the Bone Cancer Research Trust set up in memory of Frank aiming to raise both awareness of this horrific disease and crucially, to raise much-needed funds.

When I say much needed, I mean it. Primary bone cancer received just 0.02% of funding from the major UK cancer charities in 2020/21. This lack of investment means that neither treatment nor survival rates have improved in over 30 years and that there’s so little chance of survival if it returns.

This was the case for Frank and put simply, a 14 year old lad should not stand the same chances of survival from a cancer as he would have done 30 years ago. It's painfully unfair, and it's all down to something so simple as funding. Funding leads to research, research leads to better treatment, which leads to higher survival rates and, eventually, one day, a cure. That may sound optimistic but I truly believe we can get there; we just need your help.

Just this month a new Ewing Sarcoma research project was announced that is partially funded by the BCRT and the money you have donated so far. This project will use Frank's actual cells, amongst other's, to:

1) Identify patients who are likely to benefit from anti-cancer drugs

2) Enable treatment plans to be tailored to patients and maximise their chances of survival.

3) Discover if it is possible to predict, prior to starting treatment, if the disease is aggressive and therefore unlikely to respond to standard chemo, which as we know now, was tragically the case with Frank.

The Bone Cancer Research Trust is the only charity dedicated to this disease, it is a small but national charity based in Leeds, UK. They fund ground-breaking research, life-saving awareness initiatives and provide dedicated and trustworthy information and support to patients and all their loved ones... All without any regular government funding.They rely 100% on people like you supporting their work through donations. Their work has never been so crucial and vital.

We've done comedy nights, we've done raffles, we've done charity gameshows...I'm still fuming about going out in the first round on Pointless, but I more than made up for it on Celebrity Mastermind thank you very much!

But this will be the toughest task by a mile (well, 26 miles). I've never ran a marathon before in my life, but at least I have the privilege to be here to do it. Frank doesn't, so this is for him, his family, and anyone else affected by this horrendous disease.

Let's raise as much money as we possibly can, give it to the clever clogs who can work out how to beat it, and let's make sure that one day, no one has to go through what Frank did.

Thank you so much for reading, a donation big or small would mean the absolute world.