In April 2012, I lost my Mum, Judith Jones, to cancer. In her last few weeks she came home from hospital to be with the family before she passed away. She was looked after by carers provided by Havens Hospices as part of their Hospice at Home scheme. If you have ever been with anyone in the final stages of cancer, you will know that the care required is considerably more than administering medicine and cups of tea. The hospice carers carried out their duties with a humbling professionalism and sensitivity and they made a distressing time for my mum and our family that little bit easier to bear. We’ll be forever indebted to them.

At the end of July, I and a small team from Vimpex, our family business for which my Mum also worked for many years successfully cycled to Paris from Great Wakering in Essex to raise some money for Havens Hospices.

It really is an excellent cause and one for which any donation, however small or big, would be very gratefully received. Put simply, the more fundraising they get, the more carers can be supplied giving more people access to the excellent care my mum had.