In 2021, I lost my dad to leukaemia.

It was shit. Properly, really shit. He wasn’t just my dad - he was a legend, my best mate, and despite the fact he lived in New Zealand and me in London, he was still part of my every day. Having already lost my mum back in 2016, Dad had become even more important in my life. He was my daily constant - we’d send voice notes, messages, and calls, keeping him close even though we weren’t physically together. So when he died, not only was the loss acute and painful in the moment, but my daily constant disappeared and that was even more painful. Losing him didn’t just mean losing a parent - it was losing the person who’d always been there, who made everything feel a little easier. I'm not a special case, anyone who has lost a parent at any age will know the feeling, and those that haven't will know the feeling of solidity and continuity a parent gives you - whether you're 11, 31, or 71, or anywhere in between.

I still find it hard to believe he’s gone. It’s weird, isn’t it? Someone who’s always been there, suddenly isn’t. I catch myself thinking he’s just a message away, and it’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that I can’t just pick up the phone and hear him on the other end. That absence is huge - it’s in all the little things. The photos I would’ve sent him, the festival stories we’d compare, the work updates I’d usually call him about. It’s like there’s this gap in every part of my day where he should be, and that’s something you can’t really prepare for.

That’s why I’m running the 2025 London Marathon for Leukaemia Care UK. Because when you lose someone to something like leukaemia, you realise just how important support and information are—having people who know what you’re going through. Leukaemia Care is there for families and patients from the moment of diagnosis, making sure they don’t face it all alone.

The fundraising, the training, the big day itself—it’s all to honor Dad and raise awareness for a charity that’s doing incredible work. And I know he’d think I’m absolutely mad for taking it on, would not understand the need, but god he would be proud, and that in itself is all the motivation I need to skip a few beers, a few late nights, and smash the tarmac between now and April 27 2024

So, if you can, please donate to my page. Yes, this is a personal story for me but your support will mean the world to countless others too. Let’s do this for Dad.