Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

The reason for taking up this challenge is to honour the memory of my wonderful Dad, whom we lost to pancreatic cancer in 2010. He gifted us with a love for the theatre (we now have two actors in the family!), books, classical music and jazz, and a wacky sense of humour, among many other qualities. We miss him very much.

Pancreatic cancer is almost invariably diagnosed too late to help the person very much, as it so often shows no symptoms, and so it was with my Dad. He bravely chose not to take any treatment, seemed OK for a little while, but then went downhill very fast and died 2.5 months after being diagnosed.  

This is from the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund's website:

'Each year over 8,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is the fifth most common cause of cancer death, causing five percent of all cancer deaths each year.

Lowest survival rate

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of all cancers – just 3% of those diagnosed survive for five years. It is also the only cancer that has seen no improvement in this figure over the last 40 years.

Yet despite its high death rate and lack of improvement in chances of survival, pancreatic cancer attracts little research funding in comparison with many other cancers'.

So that's why this is my chosen charity for the 4 day London to Paris bike ride challenge. Myself and two friends are making the journey, and keeping a blog of our progress to prepare and carry out our mission, at http://threegirlsinfivedays.blogspot.com/

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 and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now, donations of any size gratefully received.

Tulip x