Hello everyone.

I am running in the West Highland Way Race on the 22 June 2024. So less than a month to go! It starts at 1 o’clock on the Saturday morning and I have 30 hours to complete it. Why? Because I don't know I can! But I'm going to try. 96 miles from Milngavie (Glasgow) to Fort William. It's up and down, I will essentially be climbing and descending Everest twice.

I have decided to try and raise some money for the Bone Cancer Research Trust. I hadn’t encountered this Trust before being introduced to it by a fellow Army Air Corps officer who ran the London Marathon this year. I talk about Jason Dawes whose son, Ellison James Knightly Dawes, died on 3 Feb 2021 after battling Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. He was diagnosed in April 2020 and fought with the utmost bravery through 9 months of aggressive cancer treatment.

Jason’s words were a difficult read for me and they will be for you. No child or parent should ever have to go through this. He says it better than I could ever do when describing why we need a cure....

“I frequently look for the words to describe those 9 months and life since, but I can't. Physically, my stomach feels like a ball of concrete being twisted and twisted, and I experience overwhelming moments of dread that the world continues on without him in it. But Ellison never complained about his cancer, asking only once ‘why is this happening to me?’. He faced his illness not just bravely, but with patience and grace – even teaching me along the way that I needed to be kinder to the doctors and nurses, when I became frustrated that they weren’t curing him quickly enough.

During his last month, he read a story about a little boy whose sister was ill and an angel called Skellig cures her. Ellison asked his teacher, during one of his final zoom calls before he became too ill for school work, why an angel couldn’t come and save him".

A cure for this appalling disease needs to be found, to ensure that stories like Ellison’s become a thing of the past. The BCRT’s research into bone cancer is the first step. Supporting this charity is like capturing a little bit of the spirit of Skellig. By running for The Bone Cancer Research Trust I want to stop other parents losing their child to this evil disease. I want others to have the chance of living.

The Bone Cancer Research Trust is dedicated to saving lives & improving outcomes for people affected by primary bone cancer. Despite being small, they fund more research projects exploring primary bone cancer than any other organisation. Other large UK cancer research charities do not prioritise bone cancer patients, in 2019 just 0.028% of their research spend went to bone cancer – not even close to 1%!Last year alone, Bone Cancer Research Trust committed an incredible £807,824 to pioneering bone cancer research - to save lives!