We’ll raise a million (From The Northern Echo)

We’ll raise a million

4:32pm Tuesday 27th September 2011 in Health

Pamela Roberts tells Health Editor Barry Nelson about her pledge to raise funds for research into the rare form of cancer that killed her husband.

ON the night her husband died of a brain tumour, in May 2004, Pamela Roberts made a promise to herself that she would raise £1m for research into a little-known, but deadly, form of cancer.

Five years later, Pamela, 64, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, launched her campaign to beat the cancer that killed her beloved husband, Peter.

Former childhood sweethearts in Liverpool, they enjoyed an idyllic family life with their two, now grown-up children, Emma-Jayne and Simon. Peter’s business career was stellar, ending up as a global partner in an international firm of management consultants.

But tragedy struck in December 2002 when Peter was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.

Racing against time, the couple “lived on fast forward”, says Pamela, until he died ten months later.

Devastated by her husband’s death, it took Pamela – known to her friends as Pammie – five years before she was ready to try to get her charity off the ground. But since its beginnings on September 9, 2009, the PPR Foundation £1m Appeal has gone from strength to strength.

Within months of the launch, at the Ripon Castle home of family friends Sir Tom and Lady Emma Ingilby, Pamela was contacted by other widows from North Yorkshire who had lost their husbands to brain tumours and who wanted to help. This group included Jetta McGill and Pauline Francis, from Harrogate, and Margaret Wilson, from York.

Jetta lost her husband, Quentin, in 2008, a few days short of his 57th birthday. “We had no warning. He suddenly put his hand to his head and said ‘what is happening to me?’, then collapsed.” He died less than a month later.

Pauline lost her husband Chris, 59, shortly after he had taken early retirement from farming.

He died within four weeks of being diagnosed with a brain tumour. The first sign of the illness was when she realised he was becoming unusually confused.

Getting involved in the PPR Foundation “has helped to ease my grief”, says Pauline.

The charity was also contacted by Lady Penelope Mowbray, of Allerton Hall, near Harrogate, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in 2006. She agreed to become a patron for the charity.

Now, with more than £325,000 in the kitty, the charity is on the brink of allocating its first research grant to scientists.

“We started this appeal on the 9th of the 9th 2009, which was a wonderful date to start because we really are in a 999 emergency. Thankfully, diseases like breast cancer and leukaemia are no longer the death sentences they used to be, but as far as research into treating brain tumours is concerned we are where breast cancer and leukaemia were 25 years ago,” says Pamela.

Recently, she hit on the idea that instead of relying on big donations from well-off supporters, it would be possible to raise money by appealing to more individual donors.

“I was lying awake in bed at 4am wondering how I was going to raise all this money when suddenly I realised it would be so easy to raise £1m if you asked everyone to give just £1.”

Pamela is hoping to hold a fundraising event near Christmas, but in the mean time she wants to see the charity spread around the region.

“We are hoping we can form some satellite groups of supporters. We are looking for people to come along to join us or help us in different areas,” she says.

Certainly, the PPR Foundation name is increasingly familiar in North Yorkshire. Apart from having major fundraising events at Ripley Castle for past two years, the charity has also had a presence at the Yorkshire Show.

With a growing number of supporters – and backed by patrons who include singing star and brain tumour survivor Russell Watson – Pamela is confident of success.

“We are so thrilled at the way this has all grown, but when we get to our first million, we won’t stop there,” she says.

• To contact the PPR Foundation Brain Tumour Research Project, call 01423- 873412 or go to the pprfoundation.com