THE WOMEN walking all over BREAST CANCER
Over the past 20 years, two women have played a huge part in the breast cancer success story. Walk the Walk founder Nina Barough has raised millions, and Baroness Delyth Morgan of Breast Cancer Now has put it to good use. Good Housekeeping is proud to su
So, a lot has happened since Walk the Walk began 20 years ago…
NINA: We have raised more than £120 million since I first power walked a marathon with a group of women in our bras. For a charity that was never planned, we have provided money for ground-breaking medical research, with grants to numerous charities and organisations, including Breast Cancer Now. DELYTH: Yes, we’ve seen some really important advances with the five-year survival rate increasing from around 75% to well over 85% – and that figure is increasing all the time. And it’s all down to better treatments, which is the result of continued investment in research. N: Attitudes have changed, too. Twenty years ago when I experienced my own breast cancer, it was still described as the ‘C’ word and thought of as an instant death sentence. Walk the Walk has succeeded in taking away some of the fear. Today people talk freely and openly about the disease.
What have been some of your biggest joint projects?
D: The Tissue Bank is a great example of one of the projects that Walk the Walk has helped to fund – it’s the UK’S first national bank open to researchers that provides high quality samples of breast
[continued from previous page] tumours donated by patients. Walk the Walk has also helped to fund our landmark Generations Study, set up in 2004, following more than 113,000 women, to help understand the causes of breast cancer. We are also working on developing new treatments for triple-negative breast cancer, which can be more aggressive but has fewer treatment options. And we are working on vital research to understand how breast cancer spreads, and how non-cancer cells in the body can sometimes help this process.
We’ve achieved so much, but it’s funny to think that, in the beginning, the idea of walking in the street in a bra was extremely controversial. So it was no surprise that when I called Breast Cancer Now to ask if they would like to be the recipients of our fundraising, there was a long silence on the phone, followed by an urgent Trustees meeting to canvas their views… thankfully, they supported us and we have never looked back.
And your personal highlights?
‘When my sister was first diagnosed with breast cancer, my family did the Moonwalk. It was really wonderful to feel cocooned in the hope and optimism that the event creates at what was a low point for me personally. Knowing that thousands of people are coming together to take on a challenge of this magnitude to help beat breast cancer sooner is very special and poignant.
When I discovered I had breast cancer, I was 41, single, and I felt like my life had ended. So to now have a wonderful husband and a gorgeous daughter is precious. Along with my family, they are most certainly the jewels in my life. But Prince Charles becoming our patron, and our 20-year celebration at Clarence House were wonderful. The start line of the first Moonwalk and actually every one after that… they are all so special!
What’s the next challenge?
Secondary or metastatic breast cancer – where the disease has spread away from the breast to another part of the body – is the cause of almost all deaths from breast cancer, so it’s absolutely critical we tackle it. Research has made so much progress in this area but there’s still so much more that we need to understand. And with almost 1,000 women and men dying every month in the UK from breast cancer, there’s no time to lose. It’s true that while breast cancer is on the brink of being a treatable disease, the same cannot be said for those with secondary cancers. We feel very strongly that this is where we need to invest our funds, in the hope that, within the next 20 years, the same choices of life can be given to those with secondary cancer.
Can we achieve the same improvements for secondary cancer?
D: We believe that if we all act now, by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live. It’s an ambitious target, but we think it’s achievable. My sister has been living with secondary/metastatic breast cancer for over five years and, while we recognise that the disease is incurable, we are sure this would not have been possible without the progress made by scientific research over the last 20 years. N: Both charities share that ambition to make primary and secondary breast cancer a treatable disease. At this year’s Moonwalks in London and Scotland, I persuaded all our youngest walkers, 13- and 10-year-olds respectively, to join me on stage. Seeing them really hits home that we must keep going on this for their generation.
‘Knowing that thousands of people are coming together to take on this challenge is special’