This is a photo of my lovely daughter, known to you as Lily, in her role as Ambassador for Cancer Research UK, meeting Constituency Assembly Member for Cardiff Central, Jenny Randerson. Lily is one of 40 volunteer campaigners who have been recruited across Wales by the charity to seek improvements in cancer services and policy for Wales. Cancer Research UK’s Cancer 2020 Campaign calls for a Cancer Plan for Wales which would focus on prioritising cancer prevention, improving early presentation, detection and screening and the uniform provision of cancer treatment across the country. Many of the charity’s ambassadors are themselves cancer patients and survivors but Lily volunteered because of what had happened in our family. In her words: ‘When my grandfather developed pancreatic cancer in 2004 one of the few positives was that he was treated at a nearby hospital, the Royal Marsden, the first hospital in the world dedicated purely to treatment and research of cancer. Although there wa...
Christine Stovell, author and freelance writer, on living and writing in West Wales