Mouth Cancer Foundation

Annual 10km sponsored walk for the Mouth Cancer Foundation

The annual 10km sponsored walk for the Mouth Cancer Foundation took place on Saturday 20th September 2014 in Hyde Park, London; at 2pm. The annual walk aims to raise the awareness of the symptoms of mouth cancer and 2014 was the biggest walk yet with over 500 people taking part. In the small hours of Saturday morning we had torrential rain, with thunder and lightning sufficient to give us a brief power cut at home. At this point I started laughing hysterically thinking about our walk later in the day. I was convinced that we would get absolutely soaked. But somebody was smiling on us and, when we met at the bandstand at Hyde Park, the weather had perked up considerably. It wasn't a sunny day but it was mild and dry. Good enough for me! Bradley together with Caroline, Christina, Dawn and Janet represented Smilecraft.

There was a great atmosphere at the bandstand, with music booming from the speakers. Amongst the participants were a number of survivors of mouth cancer and they were wearing sashes proclaiming their good fortune in surviving this aggressive disease. A few of them took to the podium to tell their heartfelt stories. Nobody could help feeling moved.

Everybody, including those who had survived mouth cancer, was in great form and keen to get going on the walk. Before we started out we had a warm up in what felt like a huge aerobics class starting with "Happy" from "Despicable Me 2". The walk itself was a wonderful experience from start to finish.

The only distressing aspect of the walk was that the GPS and software on my smartphone disagreed with the distances between the markers and ultimately I am convinced we walked over 13Km instead of 10! Thank-you to everybody who donated.

Bradley Abrahams