Press release
Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years
Wear A Hat Day 2018 Top-Hat facts

Brain Tumour Research has teamed up with world famous, London-based, hat makers Lock & Co to share some fun hat facts to support the charity’s annual Wear A Hat Day campaign on Thursday 29th March 2018 to help raise vital funds for research into brain tumours
- The hat Nelson wears at the top of his Column in Trafalgar Square is a cocked hat and cockade which he first ordered in 1800. Five years later he commissioned a matching eye patch
- Winston Churchill’s trademark hat is a Homborg also known as a Cambridge
- Bespoke hats are tailor-made using a wooden frame with movable pins, known as a “comformateur.”
- The “Coke” hat worn by villain Oddjob in the Bond movie Goldfinger was sold at auction in 1998 for £62,000
- The regulation headwear of WW1 soldiers and officers, the “Mark 1” tin helmet, was patented in 1915
Source: Lock & Co
For further information, please contact:
Lexie Jenkins at Brain Tumour Research on 01908 867222 or 07591 206545 or Lexie.Jenkins@braintumourresearch.org
Notes to Editors
Brain Tumour Research is the only national charity in the UK focused on funding sustainable research to find a cure for brain tumours. We have established a game-changing network of world-class Research Centres of Excellence in the UK. Embracing passionate member charities nationwide, over £6 million was raised towards research and support during 2017.
We are campaigning to see the national spend on research into brain tumours increased to £30 - £35 million a year, in line with breast cancer and leukaemia. The unprecedented success of our 2015 petition led to the 2016 Westminster Hall debate and Brain Tumour Research taking a leading role in the Government’s Task and Finish Working Group convened to tackle the historic underfunding for research with the report being published in 2018.
Key statistics on brain tumours:
- Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer
- They kill more children than leukaemia
- They kill more men under 45 than prostate cancer
- They kill more women under 35 than breast cancer
- Just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease
- In the UK 16,000 people each year are diagnosed with a brain tumour
- Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years compared with an average of 50% across all cancers
- Brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age
- Incidences of, and deaths from, brain tumours are increasing.
Please quote Brain Tumour Research as the source when using this information. Additional facts and statistics are available from our website including our latest Report on National Research Funding. We can also provide case-studies and research expertise for media.