At the end of August I'm climbing Snowdon to raise money for the Mouth Cancer Foundation, and because there are a great many good causes you could give your money to, I want to explain why it's this one.

More than twenty years ago my family and I were living in Tanzania, and in those first couple of years my friend Ian, who's a dentist, came across a man called Jani. Jani had mouth cancer. Nobody had spotted it, nobody had treated it, and by the time we came across him it was well advanced and moving quickly. I'm not going to describe what it had done to his face, partly because it isn't a fair thing to put in front of you, and partly because I'm not sure I could without it sounding like something out of a film. What I will say is that he was in an amount of pain I still find difficult to think about, there was no surgery and no treatment available to him where he was, and the only thing Ian could do was make him as comfortable as possible for the time he had left. He died not long afterwards.

That was two decades ago and I still think about him.

Now, Tanzania in the early 2000s is a long way from a UK high street in 2026, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But the thing that finished Jani wasn't only where he happened to live. It was that nobody found it early enough. And that part travels.

What mouth cancer looks like here

There are over 8,300 new cases of mouth cancer in the UK every year and more than 2,700 people die of it, which works out at roughly one person every three hours. According to the Mouth Cancer Foundation, cases have risen by almost half in the last decade. Five-year survival has barely improved in a generation, and that isn't because treatment has stood still, it's because too many people are diagnosed late, once the odds have already turned. Around a quarter of cases have no significant risk factors at all, so "I don't smoke and I hardly drink" isn't the protection most people assume it is.

Mouth cancer kills more people in this country every year than road accidents do. It just does it quietly, one person at a time, and mostly out of the news.

Why the Mouth Cancer Foundation

The Mouth Cancer Foundation is a small UK charity doing the unglamorous work that actually moves those numbers. They raise public awareness of the signs, symptoms and causes, including HPV, tobacco and alcohol. They teach people how to check their own mouths, which is where a lot of early diagnoses begin. They support patients, families and carers during and after treatment, through an online community and local support groups. And they give dental and medical professionals free resources on screening and early detection.

None of that makes for a dramatic advert. It's just steadily making it easier for someone to notice something, say something, and get seen — which, for Jani, would have been the whole difference.

The ask

I'm aiming to raise £1,000. If you've ever sat in one of my sessions, read something I've written, or worked with me over the years, this is the one thing I'll ask you for this year.

Anything you can give is welcome and small amounts add up faster than people expect. If you're a UK taxpayer, please tick Gift Aid — it adds 25p to every pound and costs you nothing.

And if money's tight, that's completely fine. Do this instead. Have a proper look in your own mouth this week. An ulcer or sore patch that hasn't healed, a red or white patch, a lump or thickening that wasn't there before, a hoarse voice or difficulty swallowing that won't shift. Three weeks is the number to remember. If it's still there after three weeks, get it looked at — by your dentist as much as your GP.

Thank you.

Mark