It is the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust's 20th Birthday this July!

In celebration, Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust has launched its #200for20 campaign, challenging us to raise £200 as nod to 20 years of inspiring brighter futures, through sailing and outdoor adventures, in young people living through and beyond cancer.

I have decided to take up the 200 for 20 challenge.

Aged 13 my daughter Claire was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and her world and our family’s changed forever. Thankfully, through the amazing team at Piam Brown Southampton Hospital she was successfully treated and became cancer free but life was not the same. She returned to school and felt disconnected from her fellow teenagers- she could no longer keep up in PE lessons, could not share in the carefree banter about the latest film or parties while instead she was dealing with the loss of dear friends she had made while being treated who had very sadly died. She couldn't focus on exams as she knew life could be thrown of course again if she relapsed. As a Mother I was desperate to make everything okay but of course I could not.

In this period, Claire was given the opportunity to sail with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust- I remember feeling very anxious to let her go . I had been by her side caring for her since her diagnosis and this seemed a huge step . I need not have worried . She was leaving one family for another - the family of the EMCT Team wrapped her in their care , gave her opportunities to do things she had never done before, to have fun again and to push herself to meet new challenges. She met other young people on that same journey and realised she was not alone. She saw young people like her who were now thriving. It gave her hope and increased her confidence. She looked less like the girl with the world's worries on her shoulders and let herself enjoy things again. She passed exams and moved on to University, work, Motherhood and has channelled the wisdom gained through her experiences into being a caring and wise adult holding those she had lost in her heart and making a difference in the world. Through it all she has stayed with the Trust taking part in sailing both as a client, later as a volunteer and now as a Trustee.

I cannot thank the Trust enough for helping Claire and us as a family to be able to move forward when things were so dark and difficult. I know the Trust has given this life changing experience to so many other young people and families in the last 20 years and so I will be doing 5 walks totalling 20km in Wales in places that have wonderful memories and which lift the soul. I will do a walk with my dear husband along the Mawdacch Trail; with my younger daughter Lucy walk high in the hills on Precipice Walk and from the beautiful bay of Aberaeron up through the Welsh countryside; with Claire , her wife, and our grandchildren walk in the shadow of Snowdon Mountain along the river to Gelert's grave and finally alone along the Cardigan Bay that inspired Dylan Thomas, one of mine and Claire’s favourite poets.

I hope you will support me by sponsoring me to complete these walks and raise much needed funds for the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, so that other young people like Claire and families like us can be given hope.