WOOTON ULTRA-RUNNER SACRIFICES TWO DAYS OF SLEEP TO RAISE £4,500 FOR MACMILLAN

• A civil engineer from Wootton has redefined what it means to be a good neighbour by taking on an extreme charity challenge in honour of his friend Pete, who is being treated for lung cancer
• Tony Lawrence ran four miles every four hours over a 52-hour period with no sleep and with a 23kg weight on his back to raise cash for Macmillan Cancer Support
• It’s been a relentless 12 months for Pete, who was stranded in Hong Kong with Covid-19 last March and later discovered his cancer had returned, mere months after returning home

For most people, being a ‘good neighbour’ means taking in a parcel from the local delivery driver or donating a cup of sugar to top up dwindling baking supplies.

For Tony Lawrence, 35, it means completing a punishing physical feat to raise around £4,500 for the cancer charity that has helped his friend and neighbour, Pete Allen, 78, to cope with a succession of lifechanging cancer diagnoses.

Earlier this month, the civil engineer and married father-of-two pounded the streets and back routes of Bedford in four-hour blocks to raise vital funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, which has recorded an influx in demand for its specialist support services during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before Pete’s current course of chemotherapy treatment began affecting his mobility, the next-door neighbours could often be seen chatting on their driveways in Wootton as they went about the odd jobs and repairs their wives had set them, occasionally finding themselves completing lockdown work-outs side-by-side.

Tony’s kids have always loved seeing Pete and his wife Jane out the front, coming to view them as surrogate grandparents, and in the proud and hardworking Pete Tony saw his own dad — also called Pete and a builder — reflected back at him.

He was naturally devastated when Pete, a retired builder-decorator, announced over their driveways in September last year that his cancer had returned to both lungs and was this time treatable, but not curable.

As someone who struggles to express his emotions at the best of times and knowing that Pete would never accept a direct offer of help, Tony decided the best way to show his support would be to fundraise for a cause Pete held dear.

He said: “When someone like Pete tells me they’ve been re-diagnosed with a very serious illness and could potentially die, I admit that I don’t know how to respond. Fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support is my way of showing that I care and my equivalent of putting an arm around his shoulder. He’s been dealt curveballs left, right and centre and when he did get a break [being declared free of cancer back in 2018], it just came right back.

“He thrives on being active and working hard, but now he’s not really able to climb a ladder and that’s so frustrating for him. Imagine what it feels like to not be able to climb a ladder, when your whole existence has been based on working and providing for your family.

“I just thought if Pete could put up with what he’s going through, then surely I could do this. Pete is one of those people who are faced with great adversity and choose not to be defeated by it — he had parts of both lungs removed when he was first treated for lung cancer, but that didn’t stop him going to the gym at 78.

“Here’s me, whinging about a sore knee and other people whinging about their sore back, while Pete had been heading to the gym with reduced lung capacity. I’m a really big fan of people like that. Hats off to him.

“He was the first to hear about my challenge. I said I know there’s not a lot I can do here but I can do this one thing to show that I care. He welled up and said thank you and we had a little bit of a moment. I asked him who had been helping him and he said the Macmillan Primrose Unit at Bedford Hospital, as well as the local Macmillan Psychology team, Bedfordshire Palliative Care Hub and Macmillan nurses who had supported him through each of his diagnoses.”

News of the cancer’s return was the latest in a string of setbacks for Pete, who was first diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in his right lung in 2016, for which he required keyhole surgery, and then the same again in his left lung in 2018.

After being declared cancer-free, he made the most of his health by travelling abroad, most recently to Australia, where he and Jane set off on 13th March 2020 — reassured by their travel agent that it was safe to do so.

The couple were soon advised to abandon their dream holiday, and flights back home were arranged via Hong Kong. It was in transit there that they both tested positive for Covid-19 and were stranded for seven weeks in hospital before they could return to the UK. While Pete didn’t have any symptoms, Jane was gravely ill and given a 50–50 chance of survival.

Their relief at returning to relative normality in the UK was short-lived however, as a routine check-up in September revealed that Pete’s cancer had returned. While successive surgeries and the side effects of chemotherapy treatment have hampered Pete’s ability to go about DIY tasks as he normally would, the ongoing support of Macmillan professionals at every stage of his illness has made an unsettling time that bit more manageable.

Tony added: “Speaking from personal experience, I believe that generally men don’t like to delve into the details of what they’re thinking and feeling. They don’t like talking to other men — particularly men outside their immediate family — about their problems because they often feel they should be able to shoulder their own burdens. Showing emotion can feel like a reduction in masculinity and that that’s why men tend to bottle it up.

“For men like Pete and myself, people around you can be chomping at the bit to do something to help but accepting that help can still feel like an admission of defeat. I know I’m guilty of bottling things up for months.”

The brainchild of American ultra-marathon runner David Goggins, who dreamt up the charity challenge in the early days of the first lockdown, the 4x4x48 requires participants to run four miles every four hours, over a period of 48 hours.

As if that wasn’t taxing enough, Tony strapped a 23kg pack to his back and went sleep for the duration of the run. In terms of a training regimen, which he documented blow-by-blow on his Instagram account (t_lawrence85), he said he was “winging it”.

It paid off in the end and with his family, the Allens and fellow villagers cheering him on in the background, he crossed the finishing line exhausted, but elated. He said: “The last 20 hours were mentally the toughest ones and it took all the discipline I had to keep going, but I had people in the village cheering me on and the adrenaline kicked in. When I crossed the finishing line and saw Pete, and my wife and kids, it was lovely.”

Above: Tony’s daughter Pippa is delighted to see her dad cross the finishing line

Tony, who has been captioning his Instagram posts ‘#HelpANeighbour’ to encourage others to be more community-spirited, is clear-eyed about the urgency of his appeal: “When you’re young and healthy, it can be easy to distance yourself from the suffering of people with serious illnesses and feel like you’re indestructible. But there’s a good chance that one day you or I are going to need the support that is helping Pete now, and when that day comes and we’re not able to help ourselves, hopefully the same help will be there for us.”

Jane said: “Pete felt very emotional when Tony told him he wanted to fundraise for Macmillan. He was surprised and so grateful to think that a neighbour would go so far to raise funds in his name.

“Both Tony and his wife Susie have been offering help of any sort, if needed, at any time, day or night. In this day and age, a couple in their 30s with a young family to take care of, offering to be there for a couple in their 70s, is heart-warming.”

Melanie Humphreys, a Relationship Fundraising Manager in the East of England, said:

“Tony’s fundraising will not only help people diagnosed with cancer in the short-term, but also the many more people who will receive the lifechanging news they have cancer in the future.

“With Macmillan research suggesting that 50,000 people in the UK are currently living with an undiagnosed cancer as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic[i], the harsh reality is that more people will receive their diagnosis at a later stage, pushing up the likelihood that they’ll have more cancer-related health issues and support needs as a result.

“Regardless of how early or advanced their cancer is, or whether it’s financial, emotional or clinical support they need, Macmillan professionals will always do everything in their power to make everyday life that bit easier for them — and it’s thanks to supporters like Tony that they’re able to do that at all.”

Help Tony get one step closer to achieving his £5,000 target for Macmillan Cancer Support by donating at: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Tony-Lawrence85

For comprehensive cancer information and support, including Macmillan’s latest guidance on the impact of coronavirus on cancer care, visit www.macmillan.org.uk.

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For further information, please contact:

Talia Samuelson, Macmillan External Communications Officer — East of England

07703 676493| tsamuelson@macmillan.org.uk

About Macmillan Cancer Support

At Macmillan, we give people with cancer everything we’ve got. If you’re diagnosed, your worries are our worries. We will move mountains to help you live life as fully as you can.

And we don’t stop there. We’re going all out to find ever better ways to help people with cancer, helping to bring forward the day when everyone gets life-transforming support from day one.

[i] Macmillan Cancer Support. The Forgotten C? The impact of Covid-19 on cancer care. October 2020. www.macmillan.org.uk/assets/forgotten-c-impact-of-covid-19-on-cancer-care.pdf