Remembering Andrew Richards
Yanna and Phoebe Richards Viloria is raising money for Cure Parkinson’s
In memory of Andrew Richards
Story
We are Yanna and Phoebe and we’ve created this JustGiving page to commemorate our Dad, Andrew Richards (Andy).
Our Dad was born in 1968 in Tiptree, Essex. After a happy childhood of running free with his brother Graham, and later becoming a bit of a teen heartthrob with a band, he moved to the big smoke, where he ended up working in finance. While this payed the bills, he was an alt man at heart - an eccentric with a lot of sci-fi books and movies, electronic CDs and new speakers, ripped jeans and converse. He was and always will be our biggest fan, who never stopped encouraging us to follow our wildest creative dreams (and not work in insurance).
Sadly he was diagnosed with rare early onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of 29. At this stage, he had only just married our Mum and had Yanna - and it was still a year before Phoebe came into the picture. He lived with the disease until January 2023, when he died at home aged 54 due to complications from his advanced Parkinson's.
He always faced the challenges of living with Parkinson’s with optimism. In between maintaining a successful career and raising a young family, he never lost faith and his unshakeable sense of humour. He was committed to understanding all there was to know about the disease and was amongst early rounds of Parkinson’s patients to undergo DBS surgery (brain surgery to treat Parkinson’s) in 2010. Despite this, Parkinson’s disease remains incurable and his decline accelerated from the point of his early retirement on ill health in 2013.
Our Dad was born in 1968 in Tiptree, Essex. After a happy childhood of running free with his brother Graham, and later becoming a bit of a teen heartthrob with a band, he moved to the big smoke, where he ended up working in finance. While this payed the bills, he was an alt man at heart - an eccentric with a lot of sci-fi books and movies, electronic CDs and new speakers, ripped jeans and converse. He was and always will be our biggest fan, who never stopped encouraging us to follow our wildest creative dreams (and not work in insurance).
Sadly he was diagnosed with rare early onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of 29. At this stage, he had only just married our Mum and had Yanna - and it was still a year before Phoebe came into the picture. He lived with the disease until January 2023, when he died at home aged 54 due to complications from his advanced Parkinson's.
He always faced the challenges of living with Parkinson’s with optimism. In between maintaining a successful career and raising a young family, he never lost faith and his unshakeable sense of humour. He was committed to understanding all there was to know about the disease and was amongst early rounds of Parkinson’s patients to undergo DBS surgery (brain surgery to treat Parkinson’s) in 2010. Despite this, Parkinson’s disease remains incurable and his decline accelerated from the point of his early retirement on ill health in 2013.
By donating, you are helping us to honour Andrew and all others who suffer from - and who are affected by - Parkinson’s disease. We hope that the day will come soon when Parkinson’s can be cured.
Dad was always extremely well informed on the science behind and the research into Parkinson’s disease. We know it would have made him happy beyond words to have so many of his friends and family donating to the cause.
All our love,
Phoebe & Yanna
THE CHARITY
We are raising money for the charity Cure Parkinson’s. With its focus on research, the charity’s goal is to find new treatments to slow, stop or reverse the progression of Parkinson’s.
Cure Parkinson’s charity was founded in 2005 by four people living with the disease. They have made significant progress in the search for a cure, striving to involve people with Parkinson’s and make research relevant and targeted.
ABOUT PARKINSON’S
The symptoms of Parkinson’s are mainly caused by the loss of dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain which control movement. Low levels of dopamine affect how your body moves, making day-to-day activities such as eating, getting dressed or using everyday objects like a phone or computer difficult. The main symptoms of Parkinson’s are tremor, muscle stiffness and slowness of movement, but not everyone will experience all of these.
Parkinson’s can cause a wide range of non-movement related symptoms including chronic pain, sleep disturbance, constipation, memory concerns, anxiety and depression; all of which can significantly impact an individual’s day-to-day life.
Around 145,000 people in the UK alone are living with Parkinson’s (that equates to around 1 person in every 350). This is expected to increase by approximately 18% by the year 2025 and is set to almost double by 2065.