My Story
Many thanks for taking the time to visit my fundraising page. On the 31st October 2022 I watched my wife of 31 years die of cancer with my two children and her two sisters by her side. We were all left physically and emotionally devastated having been by her bedside for the last 13 days of her life as she passed away. My wife Alison Templeman-Wright passed away in the Royal Marsden Hospital at Chelsea where she worked as the Senior Art Psychotherapist supporting cancer patients of all ages. Alison worked across the two Royal Marsden Hospitals at Chelsea and at Sutton and was a highly respected Senior Art Psychotherapist. Alison thoroughly enjoyed her role as it combined her love of art (she herself was a practicing artist) with her endless commitment and dedication to supporting patients and their families in dealing with their cancers. Alison would often tell me that she was doing the 'the best job in the world' and as such she was able to bring so much of her wonderful and loving personality to this role. You think that this scenario will never happen to you so when it does you are totally unprepared to deal with it. Everyday my wife is in my thoughts and there is not a day that goes by without me wishing she was by my side and being there for our two children. I call myself a 'dad-mum' but in my heart that is grieving, I know that I can never be the mum to my children that my wife was. They say that time is a great healer. I am finding that as time passes I just get better at hiding my feelings when in public. When my front door closes I am faced with my ever present feelings of: the loss of my companion in life, guilt at being alive with a future which was denied to my wife and loneliness as the person l thought would be by my side for the rest of my life has gone for ever. Sadly the home we shared together becomes a house to live in without her presence. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. What he didn’t write about is the daily emotional heartache that follows the death of someone that you loved dearly. My life will never be the same again. It has changed forever. To date I have raised money for both Cancer Research UK and Marie Curie by swimming all the previous 37 National Swimathons dating back to 1988 and I will continue to do so for these charities and for my wife. But last October 2023 as the first anniversary of my wife’s passing approached, I decided that I wanted to do so much more to help raise funds and awareness for Cancer Research UK. The current statistics tell us that every 2 minutes someone in the UK will get a cancer diagnosis and that 1 in 2 of us will get cancer, hence funding vital research that could help all of us is key. I therefore came up with the idea to combine my enjoyment of motorcycling with raising funds by planning a Solo UK Motorcycle Tour this September 2024. This vision will now become a reality this September 2024 as I have the pleasure of working alongside both Sharon Baldwin Relationship Manager, Cancer Research UK and Mark Hollands Head of Business, Vines of Guildford (Motorrad). Sharon is working closely with me on my route and schedule to maximum opportunities throughout the UK to raise awareness and fund raising opportunities by stopping off at key venues around the country. Mark will be loaning me a R1300GS motorcycle to cover my route which will cover approximately 2,500 miles and involve navigating motorways, A and B roads not to mention the unpredictable UK weather safely. Collectively Sharon and Mark will be working with their teams and me on the promotional and marketing strategy. Their individual and collective efforts are very much appreciated by me to make my Solo UK Motorcycle Tour a success. I have set myself a fund raising target of £50,000 and with Sharon and Mark behind me I can do this for us all.
