A Croydon man joined his sister in a gruelling 5K run at the Lee Valley Velopark on Saturday (October 23) to raise money for a cause close to both their hearts.
Ian Young and his sister Juliet Legg have raised over £500 so far for Brain Tumour Research after Juliet's husband (Ian's brother-in-law) Nigel sadly passed away from the disease back in 2012.
Nigel was 49 when he was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and told he had 14 months to live. He died just six weeks later, leaving behind Juliet and their two sons Mikey and Jamie.
Since Nigel's passing, his family have sought to raise money with events like the Velopark 5K to save others from the pain of brain tumours by donating the proceeds to Brain Tumour Research.
For almost a decade, Nigel’s family members have taken part in annual fundraisers for Brain Tumour Research, with his father-in-law, Maurice Young, a Team GB Age-Group Duathlete until the age of 84, also bequeathing £1,000 to the charity following his death last year at the age of 86.
With Ian and Juliet completing their 5K fundraiser, Mikey Legg, Jamie Legg and Kane Small will soon take on their own challenge by running the Reading Half Marathon on November 7.
Librarian Juliet said: "Nigel passed away just coming up to 10 years ago now and we’ve done an annual fundraiser ever since. We’ve got tiles on Walls of Hope in Portsmouth and Plymouth so are hoping to do a new one at another centre. We’re just pushing to get the last of the £2,740 we need and are hoping we can put both Nigel’s and Maurice’s names on the wall as a memorial to them both," she said.
Brain Tumour Research's 'Wall of Hope' is made up of tiles each representing £2,740 per day, per centre that the charity have tasked themselves with raising.
It was created after the charity calculated that to sustain long-term peer-reviewed research at their UK Centres of Excellence, needed to raise £1 million a year.
"We don’t want another family to go through what we have losing Nigel at the age of 49. We were shocked to find how little funding there is for brain tumours, especially as it affects children so greatly, so we wanted to try and help make a difference," the 54-year-old added.
Click here to donate to the family's fundraiser or here for more on Brain Tumour Research.
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