Friends and family have raised nearly £13,000 to help find a cure for brain tumours after mum-of-two Charlotte Giddings was diagnosed with the disease.

Charlotte, aged 36, from Clayton West, Huddersfield, has undergone three operations and had part of her skull removed in her three year battle with a grade two oligodendroglioma brain tumour. She now has regular scans to see if the tumour has returned and may have to undergo radiotherapy and chemotherapy in the future.

Despite this Charlotte, mum to Charlie, 11, and Phoebe, eight, is determined to help others and has set about raising money for the Brain Tumour Research charity.

Her husband Nick, along with 13 friends, walked 128 miles in three and a half days along the Trans Pennine Trail from Hornsea to Clayton West finishing with a family fun day at the village cricket club, raising just over £7,500. A year before Nick, this time with four friends, completed the first half of the trail from Southport.

Nick said: “There were early starts, lots of blisters, sore feet, stiff legs and hours and hours of straight line walking. But it was all worth it in order to raise a significant amount of money for this fantastic charity so that, in future, a cure can be found. My hope is that one day children will not lose parents and parents won’t lost children to this dreadful disease and that patients won’t have to endure life-changing invasive treatments.”

Andrea Pankiw, Community Fundraising Manager at Brain Tumour Research, said: “We are extremely grateful to Charlotte and Nick and everyone from the community who has been involved in this fantastic event. Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease.

“Stories like Charlotte’s remind us that brain tumours are indiscriminate, they can affect anyone at any age and that is why we are working to build a network of experts in sustainable research at dedicated Centres of Excellence, where scientists are focused on improving outcomes for patients and, ultimately, finding a cure. We are also influencing the Government and the larger cancer charities to increase research funding for this disease to match the investment for other cancers such as breast and leukaemia.”

Make a donation to Brain Tumour Research via the family’s JustGiving page.

For further information, please contact:
Susan Castle-Smith at Brain Tumour Research on 01908 867206 or 07887 241639 or Susan@braintumourresearch.org

Notes to Editors

Brain Tumour Research is the only national charity in the UK dedicated to raising funds for continuous and sustainable scientific research into brain tumours, and we are a leading voice calling for greater support and action for research into what scientists are calling the last battleground against cancer.

We are building a network of experts in sustainable research at dedicated Centres of Excellence whilst influencing the Government and larger cancer charities to invest more nationally.

We welcome recent funding announcements for research into brain tumours from the UK Government and Cancer Research UK – £65 million pledged over the next five years. However, this potential funding of £13 million a year comes with a catch – money will only be granted to quality research proposals and, due to the historic lack of investment, there may not be enough of these applications that qualify for grants from this pot.

We want research funding parity with breast cancer and leukaemia. We are calling for a £30-35 million investment every year for research into brain tumours in order to fund the basic research groundwork needed to accelerate the translation from laboratory discoveries into clinical trials and fast-track new therapies for this devastating disease.

The Brain Tumour Research charity is a powerful campaigning organisation and represents the voice of the brain tumour community across the UK. We helped establish and provide the ongoing Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Brain Tumours (APPGBT). We are supporting the crucial APPGBT 2018 Inquiry into the economic and social impacts of brain tumours and will publish their report in the autumn. We are also a key influencer in the development strategy for the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission.

Key statistics on brain tumours:

• Brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age
• Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer
• Just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to brain tumours
• In the UK, 16,000 people each year are diagnosed with a brain tumour
• Brain tumours kill more children than leukaemia
• Brain tumours kill more men under 45 than prostate cancer
• Brain tumours kill more women under 35 than breast cancer
• Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years compared with an average of 50% across all cancers

Please quote Brain Tumour Research as the source when using this information. Additional facts and statistics are available from our website. We can also provide case studies and research expertise for the media.