A Swansea mum and her two daughters will line up at next month’s Race For Life with two very personal reasons to be there.
Carole Boswell’s dad lost his long battle with lung cancer just five months ago and right now her niece is also waging her personal battle with breast cancer.
Carole and daughters Lisa and Joanne ran the 5k charity race for the first time last year in support of Carole’s dad Don Rees, who was still fighting the disease at the time.
At this year’s event, on July 24 at Swansea’s Museum Green, the mother and daughter team will be remembering the father and grandfather they lost only five months ago to lung cancer.
But Don won’t be the only one on their mind that day because they will also be running in support of Carole’s niece, Sarah Clement, who is fighting her own brave battle with breast cancer.
Carole, 57, deputy manager of Thorntons in the Quadrant Centre, Swansea, remembered her father who worked for the AWCO aluminium manufacturing company for 35 years until his retirement in 1991.
She said: “He was always smiling, he was known for his smile and his sparkling blue eyes. He really was liked and loved by everybody and I had customers coming up to me at Thorntons telling me how sorry they were to hear he had gone.”
She added: “You could not have asked for a better dad and granddad, or bampi as my daughters called him. When we were little, my dad took us out everywhere, we were always down the beach or in the parks.
“We’d go out with our little fishing nets or he’d be there skipping and playing hop scotch with us. He was a terrific dad and he was the same with the grandchildren.”
Don, who lived in Swansea all of his life, was diagnosed with lung cancer in June 2006. Despite treatment, including an operation to remove two thirds of his lung, he was told three years later that he had only six months to live.
Carole, of Townhill, said: “I suppose we were lucky because we had him a lot longer than that but it is just so upsetting and sad for everybody when you hear news like that.”
Don was still fighting the disease when Carole and her daughters took part in the race last year and although he was too ill to be at the finish line, he was very supportive.
Carole said: “When he found out we were doing it, he was just laughing and teasing us saying we would never make the course. He offered for us to take his oxygen in case we needed it but laughing aside, he was very proud of us all.
“He was always supportive, whatever we were doing and we all miss him so much.”
The event will be ever more poignant this year because Carole’s 36-year-old niece, Sarah Clement, has breast cancer and after braving an operation she is now undergoing chemotherapy.
The mother-of-one, also from Swansea, had been hoping to do the Race for Life herself but due to her treatment has not been able to. Instead, her mother, Yvonne Rees, and sister, Kelly Barrett, will join Carole, Lisa and Joanne for the race, turning the event into a family affair.
Carole said: “Sarah is being so brave and we are just so proud of how she is coping that we want the day to be about her too, to let her know that we are all there with her and supporting her every step of the way.”
To sponsor Carole and her daughters, visit the Thorntons store in the Quadrant Centre, Swansea.
