Rod’s Fundraising Walk for Richie
Former Birmingham based journalist Rod Chaytor will be pulling on his walking boots at the week-end (26 April) – all in aid of charity.
Rod (pictured), who was one of the longest-serving members of the Daily Mirror editorial team after joining the national newspaper in 1979, will be supporting Blood Cancer UK, formerly Leukaemia Research, by taking part in Richie’s Walk, an annual fundraising event.
The walk is always held on the last weekend in April in memory of a young family friend who died from blood cancer nearly 30 years ago.
For Rod, who was a Birmingham Evening Mail news editor before joining the Daily Mirror, the walk also has great personal significance, having been diagnosed himself with the blood cancer Myeloma.
“My family and I have completed Richie’s Walk many times. As some will know, two years ago I was diagnosed with the blood cancer Myeloma and underwent six hour surgery to remove a spinal tumour and receive a titanium spine. There followed intensive chemo which put me in a wheelchair for a couple of months until I learned to walk and, ultimately, to ski again,” Rod said in a message to supporters of the fund.
“My strength and stamina have continued slowly to improve and I am currently in remission. It seems there is a window of opportunity for me to do at least part of Richie’s Walk again and to raise some more money in the name of the event he inspired - which has helped fund the advanced medical treatment of which, ironically, I have been the fortunate beneficiary.”
Richie Field was a charismatic M&S management trainee from Dorridge, Solihull, who tragically died from pneumonia, aged 25, following a bone marrow transplant for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in 1997.
While he was undergoing treatment, he and his family devised a hilly 18-mile figure-of-eight charity walk around Dovedale, Derbyshire. It became an annual event - Richie’s Walk - in which his friends and family gathered in his memory, raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for blood cancer research over the years.
You can read more about Richie’s Walk and donate to a JustGiving page via this link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/roderick-inness-chaytor-1?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=EM&utm_campaign=017
