Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Last year I participated in Race For Life’s Pretty Muddy 5K in Clapham and on my fundraising page, I wrote that my primary inspiration and motivation to fundraise for Cancer Research UK was in loving memory of my father Michael, and in the name of thousands of women and their family and friends affected by breast cancer. While none of the women that I hold dear have directly been affected by breast cancer, I know I could not live without the love, support and guidance of the wonderful women in my life. I wanted to do something to help ensure that both I and others would never have to.

That said, I was so moved, to tears in fact, when confronted with the reality of seeing seas of people affected by cancer in its various forms. Literally every single person participating in Pretty Muddy had been affected by this potentially devastating disease in some way. As heart-breaking as it was, I also felt very proud and very positive that all of the participants were channelling their own struggles, sense of loss, and or grief and translating it into action.

While our family, grandparents, fathers, uncles, brothers, and all of their loved ones, have been heavily affected by cancer; I feel that I must especially acknowledge the passing of another wonderful father and person earlier this year, Don Bryson. Donnie was a really warm, friendly and wonderful human being. I feel very privileged to have known him and to hopefully continue to get to know him through his insanely cool and awesome children, my brother and sister in law, Trevor and Andrea, and our little angel, his granddaughter and my niece, Arabella.

I had hoped I might raise some money for Cancer Research UK last year through the Pretty Muddy event and I set myself a target of £200.00, but because of the love, support and generosity of my family, friends and colleagues, I smashed my goal of £200.00 and raised a total of £522.00. This year, I’ve set myself the goal of £500.00. Please help me smash that goal again, in loving memory of ALL those that we have lost, much too soon, due to this cruel disease and in honour of ALL of those still fighting it.

There are two people, in particular, that I need to thank for their support during the event last year, my mother Madeline, for coming to the event with me, taking pictures and safeguarding my possessions during the event and my grandmother Kathleen, for letting me cake her bathroom in mud following the event and hopefully, fingers crossed, letting my teammates and I do it again this year!

Speaking of which! I am thrilled to add that this year, I will be joined by my incredible friends Faye and Jenny in my efforts to fundraise. Both of their pages will be linked to mine, so please have a read through of their pages too and please consider donating!

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.