Thank you for visiting my just giving page. 

I am running the London Marathon, for the Hambrook-Skinners and for GOSH. 

On the 16th of August 2016 our friends Nathan and Verity welcomed their gorgeous baby boy, Toby, into the world. A couple of weeks later we got to meet Toby. He was teenytiny and perfect. We adored him. We had no idea that that would be the last time we would cuddle Toby. 

What came next was shocking, brutal and utterly terrifying. Toby was admitted to hospital after an innocuous bump appeared, followed by a number of small bruises. He was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital where, at just seven weeks old, Toby was diagnosed with a rare form of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML). Toby's aggressive presentation of AML left the doctors with no choice but to start a toxic and gruelling course of chemotherapy immediately.

Great Ormond Street Hospital became our friends world. It was their home and the nurses their family. They loved, cared and endured everything with Toby, Verity and Nathan. 

Toby was heroic. He took the treatment, he soldiered on and he fought his cancer. He responded well and cleared the first hurdle. We were monumentally proud of our friends and their little boy for their incredible strength and bravery. An MRI before Christmas showed he was in remission and he wouldn't need a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately New Year's Day brought new cruelty, Toby had relapsed. The Hambrook-Skinners were faced with terrifying odds and even more brutal treatment. 

Toby took another round of chemo and the bone marrow transplant. Again Toby gave an almighty punch to his cancer and gave it an epic battle, beating the odds again. Heartbreakingly Toby's immune system had taken such a battering, it was too weak to fight a chest infection. 

On the 16th of March 2017 Toby Alexander Luke Hambrook-Skinner passed away. 

GOSH did everything they could to help Toby and left no stone unturned.  Not only did they provide world class treatment but they also gave Toby and his parents kindness, compassion and love. His precious room on Lion ward was full of laughter, books, toys and magic. Fundamentally Toby's cancer was horribly rare and the treatment too aggressive. 

It doesn't seem right that today, children are still dying from leukaemia or its treatment. 

It has to change. We need kinder cures. More reliable cures. 

Tobys parents have been through an unimaginable and devastating agony and they don't want to see other children and parents suffer. They want to see a brighter future for children with cancer. Toby has his own fund set up at Great Ormond Street Hospital, it's called: Toby Hambrook-Skinner Brighter Future Fund. 

I am running for the fund, for Toby, for his parents and for love.