“The walk is both my grieving process and a tribute to Angela”

Angela and I were together for 37 years. We met in 1986 when I was a physiotherapist, and we were living in the same nurse’s accommodation. It was the 1980s so we had to keep it secret – life was very different then. Now we have two sons together, Will and Danny.

In the last few years of Angela’s life, her personality started to change a bit. We couldn’t quite work out why. We went on holiday and she couldn’t remember going – things like that. I think she wasn’t really present.

Then in November 2022, she had a seizure and they found a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball. They said it must’ve been growing for about 10 years. Luckily, it was benign. She had surgery and it was like a complete transformation. We got ‘old Angela’ back, which really made us realise how much she’d actually changed.

But she developed complications and had to go and have more severe surgery. While recovering, she developed myeloma and amyloidosis, two rare forms of blood cancer. It was the most aggressive form they’d seen and she was given a terminal diagnosis. They said she could live a year, maybe longer, but she just wasn’t responding to any of the treatment.

We wanted Angela to be at home when she died, and she did too, so we moved her home from hospital. They thought she would only last a few days, but she lasted quite a few weeks. She was tough.

During her last three nights, Angela had three visits from Marie Curie. We were very grateful; it allowed us to get some sleep and know that Angela was being looked after.

With the Marie Curie Healthcare Assistants, you just knew she was in safe hands. They’re very experienced; they know what they’re doing, who to call and when to call them, all those things. It was one woman who came, I think she was called Elsie. It meant we could go to bed properly – we’d just been sleeping on the sofa – and have a few nights of being able to breathe after being Angela’s carer 24 hours a day.

I had to think about what Angela would want me to do. Angela and I always liked being outside and walking – our retirement plan was to buy a motorhome and drive round Britain. And because she was a nurse therapist she was very much into talking therapy, so I thought she’d want me to talk to people.

I’m sort of mixing the two things together for my fundraising walk: I’ve bought the motorhome for this trip and I’m walking around the coast of Britain, visiting all the places we visited together and places we planned to go but never got to. I’ve got people to crochet 5,000 tiny little hearts in different colours and, as I’m walking, I explain to people what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

I say to them, “This is a little heart for people to have to remember someone that they have loved and lost.” This normally makes people cry and we end up having a little hug. I’ve been meeting lots of fantastic people along the way who have been sharing their story with me – everybody has a story.

It's bittersweet, really. Everywhere I’ve walked, from Glasgow to mid Wales, we have memories. The walk is partly for my grieving process, and I wanted to raise money at the same time, in Angela’s memory.

My sons are proud. They’re also a bit worried about me – I’ve been walking in some quite interesting conditions. I’ve had rain, snow, hail, fog and wind. I’ve had some interesting altercations with farm dogs, almost got cut off by the tide and walked on the cliffs in the dark.

I just have to dig deep and stay strong. Sometimes I ask Angela to help me. I call on her for her strength.