BEATSON’S CELEBRATE £43,000 DONATION TO CANCER RESEARCH UK

BEATSON’S CELEBRATE £43,000 DONATION TO CANCER RESEARCH UK

THE managing director of one of Scotland’s largest independent builders merchants has helped raise £43,000 for Cancer Research UK in memory of his much loved aunt who died from breast cancer.

Ross Marshall of family firm Beatson’s Building Supplies which has its headquarters in Alloa was devastated after his aunt Caroline Graham lost her fight with the disease on  December 6 last year aged just 46. But Ross vowed to do everything he could to help boost Cancer Research UK’s life saving work, promising to donate £1 to the charity for every bulk bag of sand or aggregate that Beatson’s Building Supplies sold. And staff across Scotland are thrilled with the amount of money raised in less than a year.

Ross, 27, said; “Caroline is the inspiration behind all of this and we all miss her so much.

“She knew we’d started this fundraising before she died. We’d visit her when she was in hospital in Glasgow and she was proud to tell all the nurses of the money that her family were helping to raise to save lives. She was my mum’s sister and right at the centre of our family.

“It was heartbreaking to lose Caroline just before Christmas but we’re delighted to be working so closely with Cancer Research UK, a charity devoted to scientific and clinical research so other families in the future don’t have to go through what we have.”

Ross visited Cancer Research UK’s Beatson Institute in Glasgow yesterday (June 3) to present the cheque and saw at first hand the home to a thriving community of world-class cancer scientists and doctors, who are working to reduce the devastating impact of this disease. Last year Cancer Research UK invested more than £24 million supporting the work of outstanding scientists, doctors and nurses in the Glasgow area.

Their aunt Caroline who ran her own hairdressing business on Islay was first diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2009, only weeks after her daughter Lorraine, 25, got married. Determined to live every second, Caroline even conquered Ben Nevis to raise thousands for charity and jetted off to Barbados for a romantic holiday where she renewed her wedding vows with her husband, Sam. But after cancer spread to her bones, she was forced to make the 70 mile trip to Glasgow for regular stays at the Beatson hospital where she endured chemotherapy.

Ross said: “Caroline was far from home but we only live in Alloa so were able to travel up to the hospital regularly to see her.

“Sometimes after she’d had a blood transfusion, she was even well enough to come home and stay with us over the weekend so we got to see a lot of her. She was too young to die. There will never be another one like her. ”

Cancer Research UK is the only charity fighting all 200 types of cancer and spent around £34 million last year in Scotland on some of the UK’s leading scientific and clinical research.

New figures reveal 50 per cent of people diagnosed with cancer today in the UK will survive the disease for at least 10 years. * In the early 1970s just a quarter of people diagnosed with cancer in the UK survived 10 years. Now Cancer Research UK has set out an ambitious new strategy to accelerate progress with the ambition that three-quarters (75 per cent) of all cancer patients diagnosed in 20 years time will survive at least 10 years.

Cancer Research UK research engagement manager, Kirsteen Campbell  said: ““I would like to thank Beatson’s for the fantastic amount they have raised and the massive contribution they have made to our vital work.

““Every year, tens of thousands more people are surviving cancer a decade after diagnosis, showing that we’re gradually reversing the tide on this devastating disease.This is thanks to the work of our scientists and doctors, but none of it would be possible without the generosity of the public, whose donations we rely on to fund all our research. We would not be able to fund our vital research without the dedication and commitment of our supporters like Beatson’s.”

For further information about Cancer Research UK’s work to find out how to support the charity, please call 08701 60 20 40 or visit www.cancerresearchuk.org.uk .

Managing director of Beatson’s Building Supplies, Ross Marshall hands over a giant cheque to PhD student, Clelia Armato at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute.