Sue French recounts the story of a spectacular fundraising effort by her friends..........

"On Sunday, 27th September our great friends from university Jeremy and Helen (aka Uncle Jeffa and Aunty Hels Bels) ran the New Forest Marathon to raise funds for the Niemann Pick Disease Group in the UK.  Dave and I along with William and Rebecca went down to support them and look after their three children Martha, Louis and Seth.  It was a beautiful sunny day (in fact a little too hot for running a marathon) and the 800 odd runners got away just after 10am.   Our job was to hand out the jelly babies at various points along the way and provide encouragement.  First stop was 5 miles.  Despite having the luxury of driving, we missed Hels at this point as she was already setting a great pace but just managed to catch Jeff. 

 

 

9 miles was the next planned stop, but having taken a wrong turn we had a scenic tour of the countryside instead and met a wild boar to boot.  Back on track we found the 15 mile marker, this time managing to cheer Hels on up the hill.  Jeff wasn’t far behind but the jelly babies were proving popular with the kids, so with too few in hand, Dave had to run up the hill after Jeff to hand more over!  We decided to try and get to the 19 mile marker, but found Hels already at 21 miles and decided we needed to get back to see her finish.  They were setting a great pace!

 

 

Hels finished 26th overall, the 4th woman home only missing out on a top 3 finish by 1 minute. Her time was a staggering 3 hours 14 mins.   Jeff wasn’t far behind, finishing in 202nd, completing the marathon in a very respectable 3 hours 56 minutes.

 

Before the Marathon, Jeff had set up a Just Giving web page to raise some funds and we were overwhelmed with the support that we received from our friends and families, in particular the friends of Jeff and Hels who supported us so generously despite not knowing our family personally and who had previously never heard of the Niemann Pick Disease before.  As I write this article, the total amount raised, including gift aid, is over £15,000 which is an amazing total.  We are looking forward to working with the NPDG to put this money to good use to help set up trials in the UK and finance research.  We would love this to be the starting point for a Research/Trial fund to be set up within the society that we can target fund raising towards and hope that we can help find a treatment for this disease that devastates our lives.  It would be great if UK families had the option of participating in future trials in the UK without having to travel to the US. 

 

William had a fantastic day with his friends and wrote a lovely thank you to his Aunty Hels Bels and Uncle Jeffa.  I couldn’t put it better than he did when he said:    “Thank you very much for helping us by running the race.  You were awesome!”

 

We are so grateful to Jeff and Hels for dedicating their time and effort to the Niemann Pick Society and Dave and I would love to follow in their footsteps next year and whilst a marathon would be a little ambitious, hope a 10K may be possible.  Anyone up to join us?

 

 

David, Sue, William and Rebecca French