Twelve years ago, I lost a close school friend from Loretto who drowned in a remote lake while on holiday in Canada. Sandy Dickson was a healthy teenager and his life may have been saved if specialist medical equipment had been available.

In 2001, Sandy’s family and friends sent up The Sandpiper Trust, www.sandpipertrust.org, to provide medical equipment for emergency use in remote parts of Scotland. As well as being a very fitting tribute to Sandy’s great love of the countryside, the Trust’s work makes an enormously valuable contribution to the preservation of life through the Sandpiper Bags.

 

Each Sandpiper Bag, a large rucksack, contains over fifty essential medical and paediatric items and costs over £1,000. They are given to rural doctors and nurses who are then enabled to carry out vital pre-hospital procedures during the critical period known as the Golden Hour, when an ambulance, even an air ambulance, may be a long way away. The Sandpiper Bags are now recognised as an international standard of immediate care.

 

I have always enormously admired the vision of Sandy’s family and friends in setting up this wonderful Trust, and have long wanted to do a fund raising event in his memory. However, no one was more surprised than myself when the London Marathon suddenly went from being an vague plan to a very stark reality, so now I really need your support to ensure that every single one of those twenty six knee crunching, dehydrating miles on 17^th April count as much as possible. Many of you know that I am not a natural runner, and it is a special cause indeed that will see me out there, battling through the miles alongside the cohorts of horribly fit Olympians, sprightly gym bunnies and men dressed as bananas and chicken nuggets.

 

Any contribution, large or small, will be so very much appreciated, both by me and by Sandy’s family – and when my legs have stopped aching, I’ll let you know how many more of these fantastic Sandpiper Bags we have been able to provide.