Brain Tumour Awareness Month 2024 shone bigger and brighter thanks to all of you who took part alongside a legion of celebrity supporters to help us reach more people and raise greater awareness than ever before.
The most important month in our calendar, March started with singer Alfie Boe, who lost his father to a brain tumour, music legend Nile Rodgers, a long-time friend and mentor of singer Pippa Simpson who tragically died last month, and supermodel and Brain Tumour Research Patron Caprice, who was diagnosed with a meningioma in 2017, all joining us for #ShineALight.
In a hugely poignant moment, we came together at 7.30pm on 1st March to light candles and post photos.
Among the famous faces helping to set social media aflame were comedians Miles Jupp, who was diagnosed with a meningioma in 2021, and Vic Reeves (real name Jim Moir), who is living with a schwannoma, as well as our Patron Theo Burrell, the Antiques Roadshow expert, who is living with a glioblastoma (GBM).
Actor and producer Craig Russell, who underwent surgery for a meningioma last year, lent his support, as did Kelsey Parker, who was married to boy band The Wanted’s Tom Parker who died of a GBM in 2022.
TV personalities Kady McDermott and Charlotte Crosby, Olympian Victoria Pendleton, actress Adjoa Andoh, footballers Ben Chilwell and Michael Mols, Coronation Street’s Simon Gregson, Emmerdale’s Susan Cookson and musicians McFly, Sharleen Spiteri, Suzi Quatro, Sigrid and KT Tunstall are just some of those who also took part.
Wear a Hat Day was the crowning glory to a jam-packed Brain Tumour Awareness Month.
Our Patron Danny Clarke, known as The Black Gardener, donned our iconic pink top hat in memory of his sister Margot McLellan who died of a GBM aged 52, broadcaster Sarah Beeny, wore a hat for her mum and stepmother who were lost to brain tumours, and astrologist Russell Grant, who had surgery to remove a pituitary gland tumour in 2022, wore no less than seven hats to mark the occasion!
Fearne Cotton, who wrote a powerful foreword for Betsy Griffin’s book Out of the Woods: A Tale of Positivity, Kindness and Courage, posted a hat snap too. One of the faces of our Wear A Hat Day campaign this year, Betsy was just eight years old when she wrote the book following a rare and inoperable brain tumour diagnosed aged two, that left her blind.
The star-studded line-up also included singer Michael Ball, actress Clare Grogan, actors Dean Gaffney, Charlie Dale, Ricky Groves, Matt Lapinskas and Max Bowden, interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Gogglebox star Lisa Baggs, model and presenter Rosie Tapner, comedian Phill Jupitus, Love Island’s Nas Majeed and football freestyler Jeremy Lynch.
Their support – and yours – is crucial in raising vital awareness and funds for research, to stop this disease from devastating lives.
You can help us build on this momentum by making a regular or one-off donation, taking on a fundraising challenge or campaigning with us to find a cure for all brain tumours.
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