That was a year that was. It certainly started on a high but the ending wasn’t as great!

In 2022 I set myself the challenge to attempt to run at least 5km every day for 365 days to raise money for the Move Charity, that later in the year I became a Trustee of. Due to 3 days where I tested positive for covid and couldn’t run, I extended the period to 3^rd January 2023 and 80 or so friends and family turned up at The Carrs in Wilmslow to walk, jog or run 5km with me. Indeed, friends from all over the world joined for what had become known as #movewithtony day. We had ITV Granada Reports camera’s there and later I went into their studios to do a live TV interview via the BBC Radio Manchester studios for a live radio interview. It was very emotional after the Granada Interview when my daughter sent me a picture of my baby granddaughter reaching out to touch me on the TV screen!

The challenge was featured in the press from local to international including Runners World USA!

Most importantly, the challenge raised very close to £21,000 including gift aid as well as a huge amount of publicity for Move and 5K Your Way during the year.

It’s always a privilege and a great honour, as well as a bit of a challenge, to be asked to talk to local school students but I was invited to take assembly at a local school and then to take assembly 4 days in succession at the local Grammar School for boys to highlight cancer awareness and the value of fundraising that they’d done. The challenge is to make these talks motivational but also to make sure that they take the message home to their father’s, Uncles and Grandfathers and I know that I succeeded as several parents that know me contacted me to let me know. Winning!

Whilst on the subjects of talks I carried on doing awareness talks for Prostate Cancer UK but this year did some talks for Tackle Prostate Cancer and MacMillan as well. The talk for MacMillan was to all the UK offices of one of their major corporate partners. I spoke to Oncology students, Manchester University where my daughter in Law attended as she works for them and I only just staved off the tears when I talked about her sons, a GP primary networks patients which I thought was amazing as, typically, GPs are very reluctant to talk to patients about screening and here was a PCN letting me do just that. I also spoke to many businesses and in total managed 43 talks. One, for Amazon, was professionally recorded for distribution to their 15,000 strong UK workforce but, unfortunately, I can’t share that. I did however do talks for Prostate Cancer support groups and one of those was recorded and here’s the link. https://youtu.be/J8Wy-YjLgzc

I also had the honour of being keynote speaker at a St Helens Rotary meeting and managed to keep them all awake!

One of my favourite other talks was as a speaker at an all-female networking meeting. This is my perfect audience as I just know that they’ll go home and kick backsides and the local GP’s will be inundated with requests for PSA blood tests.

Apart from the talks for schools and support groups the 43 talks that I did in total reached almost 20,000 people. Each of those people will have spoken to at least two other people thus reaching at least 50-60,000 and hopefully saving many men’s lives through early diagnosis. My talks get amazing feedback as a rule and here’s one example: –

“I just wanted to say thank you for today’s fantastic session. Such a great reminder and I was particularly moved by Tony’s powerful and personal story.

It was a great prompt for me today to get a PSA test, as it has been a few years since my previous one and my father died of prostate cancer. I’m currently on hold to my GP as we speak, to get this booked in.”

And another: –

“My Uncle said it was excellent – the presenter was so knowledgeable and answered loads of questions from staff – he said he was particularly struck by how much colleagues didn’t know about the basics and therefore how valuable the talk was. He said it is the one and only time he’d ever emailed HR to say “thanks for putting on such an interesting session”.”

My work in the Prostate Cancer field took a significant step forward when I was elected as a Trustee and Vice Chair of Tackle Prostate Cancer, who support all the UK wide support group leaders helping men and their families living with Prostate Cancer, and became regarded, I hope, as one of the leading patient voices in the Prostate Cancer arena.

I’ve worked with three pharmaceutical companies (paid work that funds my pro bono work) helping them understand the needs of men living with advanced stage prostate cancer and my big hope is that this will lead ultimately to the development of truly personalised care for men.

I’ve written articles for medical journals, reviewed research grant funding applications, helped with the development of The Infopool, a superb tool supporting newly diagnosed men, became Lead Patient Collaborator on a potential £2m, 10-year, research trial that regrettably, as yet, hasn’t received funding, recorded numerous podcasts including this one on men’s health https://themoveagainstcancerpodcast.transistor.fm/36

I also wrote many articles for the American website ProstateCancer.net and they are worth a read.

February was lovely as we had a winter break in Tenerife that was much needed but that was slightly tempered by hitting retirement age and having to apply for my flipping bus pass!

A highlight that month was meeting up in New Ferry with three pals, Phil who lost his young Son Nate to a brain tumour, Chris and Liam who were living with different incurable cancers, for a charity football match. You’ll remember Chris and Liam from our three not dead yet men hikes in 2022. Sadly, we lost Liam later in the year and February also saw another friend, Gemma, taken far too young with breast cancer. Both were fabulous people who are very much missed.

Gemma and I, together with our lovely, but also no longer with us friend, Helen Bacon, recorded a video and did a few TV interviews for MacMillan a few years ago about the benefits of exercise for people living with and beyond cancer and this is one of my passions so I’ve continued to work on the Prehab4Cancer programme in Greater Manchester as well as helping develop 5k Your Way, one of the offerings from Move Charity, with new groups coming onboard, old groups re-launching and launching 5KYW in Scotland. I now get asked to speak at national conferences on the subject of Prehabilitation as a patient expert and I’m already booked to talk at international cancer conferences in Spring 2024 in London and Paris. Springtime in Paris but don’t tell Mrs C!

April was special for different reasons. I was asked to do a cheque collection and thank you speech at a golf day. Not normally my thing but when they told me that the special guest would be my hero, Bryan Robson I jumped at the chance. I got to share a table with the Liverpool legend Bruce Grobbelaar. Well, you have to take the rough with the smooth! I got fed as well.

Also, in April I got to do one of the most powerful things I’ve ever done when ITV Granada contacted me to tell me that they were recording a series on mental health and one episode would be on mental resilience and they’d immediately thought about me from previous interviews that I’d done for them. The interview was one to one with legendary newscaster Lucy Meacock. A short version was broadcast during the North West of England’s early evening TV news whilst the full version can be seen at this link https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-05-08/how-a-mans-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-led-him-to-have-a-mental-breakdown

The response was incredible with people contacting me out of the blue, tracking me down on social media, to tell me that they saw the broadcast at a time when they were at a really low ebb and it had really helped them to cope better and be positive. I was close to tears reading many of the responses and it was incredibly powerful. 

As in previous years I carried on working as a coach and leader at my own running club as well as being a Trustee for the Mile Shy Club, a running club for beginners. I also continued as a Trustee of Altrincham Football Club Community Sports Charity who do the clubs community outreach work, coaching in schools in underprivileged areas and for disability groups.

June saw me being filmed for The Christie Hospital end of year review. This is where I’m treated and I use their closer to home service which is a godsend.

July, we had the joy of taking our two Grandsons to London for a weekend. The first time they’d been away without their parents, the first time on a Pendolino train, the first time on the London Underground. It was a resounding success as we asked them if they’d go away with us again and got a firm yes! Finn, the younger one, when asked what he enjoyed the most said “Chasing the pigeons!” Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

The year started with my completion of the 5km every day for 365 days but, unfortunately, August saw the end of my 2023 running. I’d been struggling with a painful knee for a couple of months but couldn’t resist doing Amsterdam Se parkrun whilst visiting my Brother In Law in his home City. I completed the parkrun in lots of pain and haven’t run since. Thankfully I’ve accessed speedy care, especially when you consider how difficult things are in the NHS at the moment. An MRI scan before the end of August showed a medial meniscus tear and significant bone damage either side of the cartilage. An arthroscopy on 13^th December tidied it up but as I write this, mid-January, I’m still in lots of pain and facing the difficult decision in April as to whether I need something more radical, a partial knee replacement. That’s going to be a tough one!

Health wise my cancer is still well controlled by a drug developed here in the UK by The Institute of Cancer Research, Abiraterone. I’m so grateful to the amazing research team at ICR and try to pay it forward by helping them whenever I can. I do some reviewing of lay versions of research grant funding applications so I get to go and visit the scientists periodically and look at the amazing work they do. I also helped them with a fundraising project in September. They had trainers produced with the words “Finish Cancer” on the soles and people were asked to imprint those words in the sand on the coastline around Britain and then publicise it on social media. I hope it was a great success in funding their vital work. I’m thrilled that I’m on a panel at the Conference in London with the man who discovered Abiraterone, Professor Johann De Bono!

One annoying health issue has been a touch of mild vertigo that started just before Christmas and reminded me of the old saying “Accountants don’t grow old, they just lose their balance.”

As people know I’m very passionate about the value of exercise for people living with and beyond cancer which is why I’m North West Ambassador for 5K Your Way part of Move Charity that I became a Trustee of. ICR asked me if I’d help them with producing a blog about the value of exercise and this was published in early 2024 but it’s so excellent that I’m posting a link in this blog. https://www.icr.ac.uk/blogs/science-talk/page-details/can-exercise-reduce-cancer-risk-and-support-treatment

October was hectic with 7 radio interviews in one day, organised by Bayer, with the amazing Professor Alison Birtle raising awareness about risks of Prostate Cancer. Very intensive but reaching a big audience so very worthwhile.

Then we come to November which was crazy with the 4^th edition of Paint Altrincham Blue, a week of men’s health awareness in my home town, supported by Altrincham Business Improvement District. Planning for this started 9 months earlier but it’s always a bit manic at the end. The highlight was a Comedy Evening at Altrincham FC which went brilliantly but we also had awareness stands in Tesco Extra and engaged with hundreds of people. There was a blue themed trail around the town and this year’s theme was blue sports club jerseys, 17 of the bloody things! They were displayed in the windows of businesses throughout the town, each club badge was obscured with a QR code that gave clues as to which club it was, the Man City shirt was a bit easy, as well as facts about testicular and prostate cancers and men’s mental health.

Putting PAB together was a massive job and unfortunately it took it’s toll a bit as I was shattered by the end of the month. Putting the health facts together was incredibly sobering though, especially around men’s mental health which really rocked me.

PAB has never been about raising funds, it was always an awareness raiser but this year the comedy night and the sale of some of the blue shirts plus lots of generous donations and a bucket collection meant that nearly £5,000 was raised for Prostate Cancer UK as well as a small donation to Andy’s Man Club from the comedy night raffle.

December, thankfully, was much quieter. The main body of work was assisting in the production of a paper around Advanced Cancer Diagnostics that will be published in 2024 and I’m named as a co-author. Hopefully the paper will help influence the future of cancer diagnostics and save many lives through earlier diagnosis.

Professional life took an interesting turn in the Autumn when the accountancy practice that I used to co-own was sold to a larger firm, Bennett Brooks, and so I had my 4th employer in 51 years in the profession and one of those only lasted 6 months because we had a hate/hate relationship!

Let’s wrap up with some family stuff.  It’s been wonderful watching my grandchildren grow up, something that I never thought I’d see 7 years ago when I was given 2 years to live and only had Ethan who was three back then. He’s now 10 and growing into a football crazy young man.

Brother Finn is now 5 and he really is a character. The pigeons love him!

Marnie, our Step-Granddaughter is now 9 and watching her with her baby sister, Lumen, is wonderful. They clearly love each other so much just like the boys do.

Lumen is now walking and talking. I’ve been Grumps before Ethan was born and Lumen hasn’t quite mastered that so I’m lumps at the moment which feels about right after months of no weight bearing exercise and piling a few pounds on!

Our children continue to follow their own successful careers and we’re really proud of them. We try to see them all as often as we can and do the usual bits of grandparenting when we can to help them. When the grandchildren read this at some point in the future, they’ll understand just how much they mean to me. The last 7 years has been horrendous but they give me a reason to live!

It would be remiss of me not to mention our family rock, the glue that keeps us all together, my wonderful Wife Tracey. She’s had a challenging end to 2023 but we’d all be lost without her. She’s an amazing women and we’ve been married 43 years. When I was diagnosed in 2017 I didn’t think that there was a hope in hell of us getting to our golden wedding anniversary in 2030 but now I think there’s an outside chance and it’s going to be one hell of a party!

Well, if you’ve got this far through my personal lovefest well done and thank you. I hope 2024 is a great year and hope I can get back to running sooner rather later. Goodness knows what the year will hold but good health is the most important thing we have and I wish everyone that.