My Story
Simon Wood was an extraordinary man with an extraordinary idea. A gentle giant, a quiet and shy man but with a heart of gold. One of his great passions in life, other than good food and excellent wine, was choral singing and he made many friends through this in both the UK and in countries across Europe whilst on singing holidays and the like. When he was first diagnosed with cancer some years back and received excellent treatment for it, he wanted to give something back to the medical world and decided that research into this awful disease was the most appropriate way. He selected Cancer Research UK as the vehicle to do this. Not content with just making a personal donation to CRUK, he wanted to find a way of raising thousands of pounds for it. The idea evolved into Requiem To Cancer, an endurance feat where amateur singers would rehearse and sing 4 requiem masses and one specially commissioned life-affirming anthem over a period of 24 hours. Two such events have taken place so far, in 2016 & 2018, raising more than £67,000 between them. An amazing achievement. See www.requiemtocancer.org for further details. Sadly, Simon passed away at the end of July 2019 and so was unable to see through his goal of running three Requiem to Cancer events. However, a few of us had committed to him earlier in the year that we would continue the event so that his goal was reached, whatever happened to him. Here we are with Requiem to Cancer 2022 - postponed twice in 2020 & 2021 as a result of the Covid pandemic. Your donation to CRUK via this website will be very much appreciated. Feel free to leave a message about anyone you know who is either fighting cancer at this time or who, like Simon, is now in a quieter, pain-free place. If you are participating in the Requiem to Cancer 2022 event as a singer then a huge thank you to you for doing so. Exhausting it may be but exhilarating it is also with the knowledge that our share of the love of singing this kind of music can result in raising awareness and funds for the continued research into this dreadful disease. Thank you so much.
