Twenty-one-year-old Conor Harding’s life has been repeatedly impacted by cancer. He has been diagnosed with leukaemia four times, initially when he was five years old. After being cancer-free for more than four years, Conor, from Chingford in London, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in September 2025 after experiencing persistent headaches. He was told the condition is life limiting. Conor’s dad, Trevor, ran the London Marathon in April, raising more than £17,000 for Brain Tumour Research, and he has plans to run two more marathons in 2026.
This is Conor’s story, as told by his father, Trevor…
About 16 years ago, when Conor was five years old, he had a persistent fungal infection that just wouldn't go. It was a small circle patch on his arm - we thought it was ringworm. He'd been treated for it a few times, but it hadn't gone.
During a visit to the GP, the doctor said Conor looked a little bit drawn and a bit yellow, so he referred him for a blood test.
Shortly after having the blood test, I got a call from the GP saying I needed to take Conor to Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone. He said the doctors there would be expecting him.
I thought Conor maybe had anaemia or something relatively low level like that.
At the hospital, we were put into a private room and joined by the consultant, a registrar and a junior doctor. They asked a series of questions about Conor, such as whether he bruised easily and if we noticed anything unusual with his breathing. To all of which the answers were no.
They ran a few tests on Conor and after a couple of hours, the consultant said: “I’m really sorry to tell you, but we think Conor's got either leukaemia or aplastic anaemia”.
Ordinarily, Conor would have been sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital, but some of the wards there were closed down because there had been a lot of snow in London which had impacted resourcing - so he was transferred to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Conor was at the John Radcliffe for about two or three weeks. The children's ward had PlayStations, and they make everything really kid-friendly, so Conor was in his element.
Conor initially responded to treatment really well and he was transferred back to Great Ormond Street. When I was told Conor had leukaemia, I was devastated and just thought the worst but as far as the consultants and the medical professionals were concerned, it was very treatable with favourable odds. They said he had a 95% chance of remission and a 5% chance of relapse.
Conor had intrathecal chemotherapy which went directly into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) surrounding the brain and spinal cord. He had regular lumbar punctures to make sure he was responding to the treatment. While he was on chemotherapy, he lost his hair.
Because Conor’s blood counts were very low, he was very susceptible to infection, and he was admitted to Whipps Cross for a couple of weeks to be treated.
The treatment protocol for a boy is three years, compared to two years for a girl, so that took him up to him being eight years old. He went to school, bar the times he was admitted to hospital or if he had a hospital appointment. Otherwise, he was very much like any normal six, seven, eight-year-old going about life as normal.
Conor started having a few headaches when he was nine, so we took him to Specsavers. The eye test showed he had papilledema, which is swelling of the optic nerve behind the eye. Because of his history, Conor was referred to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. He underwent some tests before being referred to Great Ormond Street again.
They did a lumbar puncture, which diagnosed that his leukaemia was back. Initially, his leukaemia was in the bone marrow, but this relapse was an isolated central nervous system relapse. The leukaemia didn't present in the bone marrow; it was purely in the central nervous system.
Conor had gone past the three years of observations, so we thought he was through the worst of it. He’d responded well to treatment, he was fit and healthy, and then our world was shattered again.
When Conor was given the news, he didn’t show any emotion and just sort of accepted the diagnosis.
Conor needed to have high dose radiation and chemotherapy, but tests 12 months later showed that the leukaemia was back for a third time, also isolated to the central nervous system.
At around this time, they were clinically trialling CAR T-cell therapy which involves genetically engineering a patient's own T cells to attack cancer cells. Conor was a candidate for the trial, so he had an infusion of CAR T-cells to try and stop the leukaemia from coming back again.
It was initially successful, but then they started to see a recurrence of B cells, which was an indicator that the Car T-cell therapy hadn't worked. We then moved to having discussions around a bone marrow transplant for Connor.
All of the immediate family were tested to see whether we were suitable donors, but no-one was. Through its bone marrow register, Anthony Nolan successfully identified a 32-year-old male in New York who was the best possible match for Conor, so his bone marrow was delivered from America to Great Ormond Street.
Conor went through total body irradiation to suppress his whole immune system to ensure his body wouldn't reject the donor cells.
After having the bone marrow transplant, Conor had a period of about four-and-a-half years being cancer free. He finished school and started an apprenticeship and, after all he’d been through, we felt positive about his future.
Conor was enjoying working as a fourth-year bricklayer apprentice, spending one day in college and four days out on a building site. He was living like any 20-year-old; he didn’t have any health issues, no symptoms. He had his regular checkups which involved some detailed blood analysis, but that was it.
Then, in September 2025, Conor had five days of recurrent headaches, which was quite unusual.
For Conor to say that he had a headache and was in pain meant the headache must have been really severe because he's not someone who says he's unwell or in pain.
Conor’s mum, Julian, took him to University College Hospital London – he was under the care of its teenage cancer unit because he was between 16 to 24 years old. They did an MRI scan and a CT scan and identified a mass on his brain.
They didn't know whether it was a bacterial infection or something more sinister. They blue lighted him to the National Neurology and Neurosurgery Hospital in Queen Square because he had very high intracranial pressure, which was causing the headaches.
The consultant decided that he would need to operate. Conor underwent a seven-hour operation; they completely opened up his head, and he needed 65 staples going from one ear to the other.
The mass was on the front right lobe of the brain, so they resected as much of that as they could.
Luckily, it hasn’t inhibited any of his functions or cognitive behaviour. We found out afterwards that Conor had quite a large abscess on his brain as well.
We went back to the National Neurology and Neurosurgery Hospital eight days later for the pathology results. They brought up on screen the images of Conor’s brain before and after the operations and showed the resection.
I asked: "Is it a glioblastoma?” The consultant realised I'd done some research, and said: “Yes, it's a glioblastoma grade four, which is pretty much the worst brain tumour you can have”.
Obviously, me and my ex-wife Julian were very upset, but Conor just took it.
Before we had gone into the meeting, Conor had said: "Whether it’s good news or bad, can we just go for lunch afterwards in the pub?”
The consultant told us that the average time frame was 15 months, but that was based on much older patients. There also isn't a huge amount of research that alludes to somebody who's had leukaemia as many times as Conor, who has now developed a glioblastoma, and who has had Car T-cell therapy and a bone marrow transplant.
Being told that Conor’s condition was life limiting was devastating.
I can't comprehend it. I guess we've just been on this journey so often, but now it feels final. We know there isn't going to be a positive outcome here, that Conor unfortunately is going to lose his life to this, and I think that's really hard.
As a family, we're absolutely devastated with the diagnosis, and for us it's really about creating as many memories and giving him an opportunity to do as many things as possible whilst he's fit and well. Given his age, the doctors are trying to be positive and said he might still have two or three years. We are clinging to this hope.
The consultant said the treatment plan would consist of six weeks of radiation, then a cycle of chemotherapy every month for six months, with scans every three months.
Conor had a scan at the end of February this year, and we got the results in the middle of March. They had found some spots - it could be tumour regrowth, it could be residual radiation, but they needed to do a more detailed profusion scan to know for certain.
The results confirmed that Conor already had three tumours back.
They put him on to lomustine chemotherapy with the view that it might hopefully halt the growth of these tumours. He's just finished his second month of that. After his third month, he will have another scan, and we'll see where we are with those three tumours.
All of the chemo is essentially palliative. It's really just to try and halt tumour growth. It's not going to cure him. Glioblastoma is not curable. It really is to keep him having the best quality life for as long as possible.
I'm under no illusions that he will start to deteriorate at some point, and he could become nonverbal, or he may become bed bound - what does that look like?
Conor’s tumours came back quite quickly so they're obviously aggressive. His next scan will tell us a lot. It's an unknown at the moment.
No human should ever have to endure what he's gone through. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's horrendous for someone so young whose life has just been consumed by cancer in various guises.
I think it’s shocking, that with the medical advances that have been made for other diseases, we haven't made more progress with brain tumours.
Then you have charities like Brain Tumour Research which fund dedicated Centres of Excellence; anything you can do to help maintain that is money well spent.
What astounded me when I started looking into this is that brain tumours continue to kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet, to date, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002. That, for me, was eye opening.
On the back of Conor's diagnosis, I contacted Brain Tumour Research in early February to see if it had any spaces for the London Marathon. It was fully booked for 2026 but inevitably people drop out. A week later, I was offered a place.
Bear in mind, the London Marathon was the end of April. I'm not a marathon runner, and I was 110kg.
London was tough. Stupidly, I wore a brand-new pair of trainers, which was a schoolboy error. It was hugely emotional at the start line talking to other runners about why they were running. Seeing friends and family along the route was great.
Conor was there which brought it all home. I was running for the charity, but it was for him. He's the reason why.
The atmosphere was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was a phenomenal day.
I did it in five hours, 26 minutes which was about an hour slower than I was hoping for. I was confident I would surpass my £5,000 fundraising target. I’ve now raised more than £17,000.
I've got a couple of ideas of how I'd like to raise even more money because cancer has been such a big part of our lives.
Because the brain tumour is the one that's going to eventually take him, and because funding is insignificant in terms of overall cancer funding it means the most to me. I would love to be able to raise tens of thousands of pounds in Conor's name.
I'm actually doing three marathons this year. I’ll be running the Dublin Marathon on 25th October, and then I think my third one is going to probably be Lanzarote, which will be six weeks after Dublin. That will take me to the end of this year, and then I'm definitely doing London next year again for Brain Tumour Research. I’ll probably try and do three marathons a year thereafter.
I'm not a runner; I hate running if I'm being honest. It’s been difficult getting up by myself, training by myself, but it's equally mentally something that you can just go and do.
Everyone in the London Marathon WhatsApp group talks about why they’re doing this. You hear countless stories of friends, colleagues, family that have passed away from brain tumours - so in those deep, dark days when you are struggling, you just think of your why, and that's what gets you through.
There will be a tour of one of Brain Tumour Research’s Centres of Excellence for all the London Marathon Group which I've signed up for. I’ve raised enough money for three or four tiles that we can put up on the Wall of Hope for Conor.
Brain tumours kill more children than leukaemia. Research into leukaemia meant that Conor faced that four times and was cured. But with brain cancer, there is no cure. That is why there needs to be more investment into research for brain tumours.
I’d say to the scientists in these research facilities to keep doing what they're doing because it’s having a positive impact. That can only lead to good outcomes longer term and hopefully start to address that imbalance.
Conor has just returned to work three days a week, and he has trips planned to Barcelona with his brother and Amsterdam with his girlfriend.
He is the most amazing, selfless individual that you could ever come across. The journey he's been through is a lot; he's been through leukaemia four times, and now more recently the brain tumour. But it’s never been about Conor. He's more focused about the impact he's having on the people around him; me, his mum, his brothers, and extended family and friends.
The way he's dealt with this throughout his life has just been phenomenal and makes me immensely proud of who he is and what he stands for.
Conor said...
Growing up was difficult. I missed most of my childhood due to being in hospital so much.
When I was younger, I played rugby for my local team, Chingford. I played on the wing because I was quick. I played on and off from the age of seven to when I was twelve but then another cancer diagnosis came so I had to stop. When I was 18, I returned to the club and joined the men's team. I played for them for two years but had to stop because I was diagnosed with the brain tumour.
Last September, I knew something was up because, in the weeks leading up to the diagnosis, I was getting constant headaches, and I was throwing up a couple of times a week.
When I was told I had a brain tumour, I thought, “Not again. Not another cancer diagnosis”.
I’d never got to a point where I thought cancer was a thing of the past, but I had got to a point where I actually felt healthy for once. I had a four-year period of feeling good. I was just living life like a normal teenager should be, such as playing rugby, going out with my mates and building close friendships - but then I went downhill.
I’m 21 and I’ve spent half my life battling cancer.
Two weeks after having brain surgery, Mum, Dad and I met with the consultant. He told us that I had a stage 4 glioblastoma. He said it would never fully go, that it will come back eventually, and it will probably be the reason I pass. That was really hard to hear but I think it was harder on Mum and Dad.
I’ve just got to be strong for my family and those around me. I struggled a bit when I was first diagnosed with leukaemia but by the third and fourth time it was different, because there was hope that I could get better. But there is no cure for glioblastoma.
At the moment, I'm just trying to live my life as much as I can, going out with mates and spending time with my girlfriend, Georgia. We have just spent four days together in Amsterdam which was really nice. My brother, Stefan, and I should be going to Barcelona together soon too. The tiredness has been the most annoying thing because, when it hits, I just want to go home and sleep.
I’m an apprentice brick layer. It’s a physical job but they've been good to me and it gives me a purpose.
Brain tumour patients should have as much hope as leukaemia patients.
I want to support Brian Tumour Research in their vision to find a cure for all type of brain tumours.
For now, I’ve just got to keep my hopes up. I've got a good support system, so that makes it a bit easier to keep going, because you're not just doing it for yourself. If you give up, it affects the people who care about you.
Conor and Trevor Harding
June 2026
One in three people in the UK knows someone affected by a brain tumour. This disease is indiscriminate; it can affect anyone at any age. What’s more, brain tumours continue to kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet, to date, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002.
Brain Tumour Research is determined to change this.
If you have been inspired by Conor’s story, you may like to make a donation via www.braintumourresearch.org/donate or leave a gift in your will via www.braintumourresearch.org/legacy
Together we will find a cure.
