On 26th April this year I'll be running the London Marathon and raising money for two charities - the Friends of St. Mary's Choir and Allergy UK.

I started working as Organ Scholar at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary's, Warwick, in September 2019 and am just amazed at all the music which goes on. I'm blown away with the standard of music making at - you wouldn't know that the choristers didn't come from choir schools and that the back row are entirely volunteers. Without donations to this wonderful charity the fantastic *free* musical education couldn't continue for the kids and the choir just wouldn't exist.

The second charity is Allergy UK. As some of you probably know, I have severe allergies to dairy, eggs and nuts (also guinea pig fur and peach liqueur among other things). Allergy UK does brilliant work raising the awareness of allergies. Unlike a vegan, if I eat something with milk in I will be extremely ill, need to use an epipen and end up in hospital. During my time at Cambridge this happened a couple of times and it's not fun. It's so important more people are aware of actual allergies particularly in restaurants and other eating establishments. There is only one eating establishment which Allergy UK endorse - Yorica. It is the waffle place in London and is the only place where I can choose to eat whatever I want and the only place where I feel completely safe eating.

If you're able to give anything, no matter how small, to both/either of these charities it would mean a huge amount xx