The Kieron Clark fund has been set up by us, April and Gary Clark, in memory of our son, Kieron, who unfortunately passed away in November 2001 from brain cancer.

We are making it our goal to raise money to try to help find a cure for this devastating childhood killer.

Kieron was first diagnosed with the brain tumour known as Medulloblastoma when he was seven years old. He underwent major surgery, during which the entire tumour was removed, followed by six-week course of radiotherapy. He was left with problems with his balance and also a squint for which he had to undergo another operation.

Three years later in, January 2001, we were given the devastating news that the tumour had returned, only this time it had spread over his brain and down his spine. There was absolutely nothing that could be done. We tried everything, including taking him to America where we were told of a drug that would keep the tumours at bay for a further few months. With the help of this drug, Kieron fought on for another eight months, eventually losing his very brave fight on 25th november 2001, aged 11 years. His courage and determination to live his life to the full, including continuing to play football for his team, where he earned the nickname “Superstar”, inspired and touched everyone who knew him.

Since Kieron’s death, we have been suprised to learn how under-researched and under-funded paediatric brain tumours are. It is now the largest most common childhood cancer and is still on the increase, in fact, there has been a 45% increase in the incidence of brain tumours over the last generation. A child with a malignant brain tumour has less than a 25% chance of surviving five years. We were given money by a great many people to put towards research, which led us to canvass for the right charity to donate to. This is how we located the ‘Samantha Dickson Research Trust’ (www.sdrt.co.uk) . They have raised more than £2 million and managed to double research into brain tumours. This trust has its own scientific and medical advisory board with 50 external referees from the UK, America, Canada and Europe who give their time free in an effort to beat this disease. The ‘SDRT’ is now the largest single funder of laboratory based research in the UK.

Our goal is to continue raising funds for the research that Kieron’s monies are currently being donated to. The project has commenced at the University of Newcastle and like all projects of this nature no one know’s how long it will be before positive signs have been discovered.We have so far to date raised in excess of £90,000.00.

Any donations towards this very worthwhile cause will go totally to research, all administration costs are borne by ourselves. Please help us in our efforts to eradicate this truly awful disease.