Hello, you. It's great to see you again. Welcome back to the story.

This year, Sophie and I are taking our fight to whole new frontiers: we're going on tour! We'll be running (dancing) four different events, from Glasgow to London, culminating in the London Shine Walk OVERNIGHT MARATHON. I don't know why we do these things either.

That's a lie. I know exactly why we do these things.

When I was fifteen and Sophie was just eleven, our mum was diagnosed with cervical cancer. This was, and is, the most frightening thing that I have ever had to deal with. My mum is more than our rock, she’s a diamond shining at the centre of our family, the strongest, sparkliest person I’ve ever had the joy of knowing. My mum is smart, she is funny, she is strong, more than all of those things, she is loved.

None of those things are what saved her.

Cancer doesn't give a damn how strong, how loved, how needed our loved ones are. It takes them anyway. As if I needed reminding, the last eight years have shown me that, our back signs growing more and more crowded as cancer takes more of our people from us.

My mum wasn’t saved by her strength, her smarts, her unalteringly fierce spirit – although those things saved me and my sister too many times to count. She was saved by one thing. She was saved by research.

Forty years ago, just 1 in 4 people survived cancer for more than ten years. In just forty years, research has doubled those odds. Now 2 in 4 people survive. That’s incredible. And it’s nowhere near good enough. We can’t wait another forty years for our odds to get better while cancer takes and takes and takes. We are beating cancer. Let's beat it faster.