Tonbridge Juddians coach walks from Maidstone to their home pitch to support MND charity

KentOnline / KMTV

Stuart Thomas had his own fatal diagnosis of brain cancer last year, and upon hearing of former Leicester Tigers player Lewis Moody's Motor Neurone Disease diagnosis, decided to take on the challenge again.

Transcript

00:00I was able to be there every week, watching games on the Saturday,

00:06turning up on the Sundays to train the girls.

00:08So rugby was, you know, central to everything in terms of giving me

00:15a solid, happy platform in which you can survive these things

00:24or prolong the pessimistic diagnosis that you get in the first place.

00:32Well, thank you for joining us, Stuart.

00:33And I suppose my first question is, where did this all start?

00:36I know you've done a similar walk in previous years.

00:39Tell us about that and where we are now and why this year is different.

00:45OK, so last year's walk was on the 19th of October,

00:50which was about four months after I was diagnosed with a brain tumour,

01:01a terminal brain tumour called a glioblastoma.

01:05So I started being treated for that and being in remarkable health

01:11and having had lots of help from the brain tumour charity,

01:17I thought in between treatments I would organise a walk to raise money

01:24for the brain tumour charity.

01:26So we did that in November, October, sorry,

01:31and 50 of us walked along the medway from Maidstone to Tunbridge Jullions Rugby Club

01:39to deliver the match ball and we raised £18,000 during that walk.

01:49So fast forward a year, I'm still in remarkable health,

01:56although the diagnosis was 12 to 18 months.

01:59So I opened my phone one morning to see the reports of Lewis Moody

02:12and his diagnosis with MND and I watched his recording on the BBC

02:18and it reduced me to tears.

02:22It just took me straight back to where I was just over a year ago,

02:29you know, perplexed and not really understanding what was happening to me.

02:36And I saw, you know, I saw me in him.

02:40I saw the human being struggling to come to terms with what he's been told.

02:45And I just was moved to recreate the walk.

02:52It was almost to the day, a year since the last one,

02:56so it seemed appropriate.

02:58I know Lewis Moody is a supporter of the brain tumour charity as well,

03:03so kind of a quid pro quo.

03:07I'll raise some money for research into the cures for MND.

03:13I chose My Name's Doddy Foundation and we set off on a walk, same walk.

03:21Fewer people because it was short notice,

03:25but 35 to 40 of us did the walk and ended up at the same place,

03:31the rubber glove, to do a speech to them, you know,

03:36regarding MND and my condition.

03:38I see.

03:40And tell us a bit about what was said in that speech

03:43and how was the walk in general?

03:44I mean, quite a distance.

03:46Tell us about that.

03:48Yeah, the distance is about 16 and a half, 17 miles.

03:53The walk was fine.

03:54I mean, when you get a group of like-minded people with you,

03:59walk's very easy.

04:00It sounds daunting,

04:01but you just plod on and in no time at all,

04:06the time flies and you're there.

04:08And you stay in touch today,

04:08so that you don't need to get it out.

04:09And I know you do y'all know,

04:10the way you virtually don't行 to England.

04:11So now you have anyone right now with you here.

04:13It must tell you it to worry about how to do a friend or you

04:15do a friend or children or

04:17you do a friend or a grown others or you know.

04:18I've had enough at this time,

04:18to do a super

04:27nothing and I can't glaube.

04:28So grab your friends

04:29and hopefully like- blown others.

04:30Yeah,

04:30well,

04:31I'll take a break.

04:32Next time you're subscribed to보

04:34what's going to be?

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