“After my wife died, I wanted to do something worthwhile.

“I was a Postmaster for 38 years, now retired. An everyday person. I have no medical or academic background, but that doesn’t stop me from being able to help.

“My wife passed away from breast cancer in 2003. She’d lost about five people on her side to cancer, and on my side I’ve lost a brother. I have another brother with leukaemia. I realised genetics must be important. I got in touch with Children’s Medical Research Institute and learned about the work they’re doing on DNA and telomeres. Telomerase is a fantastic line of research. From what I’ve learned, if we can stop telomerase in cancers we can stop them from proliferating. It’s important to find better treatments for many types of cancer that affect everyone. Everyone knows someone affected.

“When I heard about Sir Lorimer Dods, and how he set up the funding for CMRI for the long term, I thought it was a good thing. Research takes 15-20 years or longer, and you can’t rely on governments that change to keep it going. The way CMRI is set up, you can be sure a line of research will be followed through to its finality … CMRI’s research has the potential to help everyone, children and adults.”