Nick Maude Memorial Fund Raises £59,000 for Research

 Nick Maude Memorial Fund £59,000 raised to fund kidney cancer PhD Research Student

In November 2011, a social cricket club from Hampshire, The White Hunters, lost their very good friend, opening batsman and wicket-keeper, Nicholas Maude following a late diagnosis of kidney cancer. Just four months earlier in July  Nick  from Upton Grey nr Basingstoke had cycled the ‘Etape’, a gruelling 208km one-day stage of the Tour de France in the Massif Centrale and had been playing cricket until the end of the summer. The suddenness of his illness came as a shock to everyone.

To celebrate Nick’s life, friends Richard Perkins, Roger Morgan-Grenville and Simon James pledged to raise funds for Kidney Cancer UK to support an early awareness research programme in Nick’s name. To date, they have successfully raised £59,000 for research into kidney cancer, with a target of £90,000. Though the fundraising for the remaining £30,000 goes on, a cheque for monies raised to date was presented in the name of Nick Maude, by Richard and Roger to the kidney cancer research project headed by Dr Maxine Tran and Dr Michael Aitchison, leading lights in the treatment and research of kidney cancer and David Cullen lead nurse in renal cancer at The Renal Cancer Centre at The Royal Free Hospital, London.

Dr Maxine Tran said; “We would like to thank Richard, Roger and Simon and Kidney Cancer UK for donating

Nick Maude cycling the ‘Etape’,

£59,000 in the name and memory of Nick Maude. We also offer our sincere condolences to Nick’s family for their loss.
“This and future money raised will go to fund a PhD student for three to four years who will perform vital research into the mechanisms, development and progression of kidney cancer. An important aim is to increase our understanding of how kidney cancers behave, improved knowledge will help us find better ways of early detection and treatment, which will ultimately bring us closer to reducing deaths from this silent killer.”

 

 
 
The £59,000 raised to date has been achieved through donations and many events including Richard, Roger and Simon undertaking individual 2,012 in 2012 challenges, a Call My Wine Bluff’ evening and cycling the 2016 Etape.

Richard who lives in St Cross nr Winchester set himself the challenge of cycling 2,012 miles in the 150-day period to the end of the 2012 Olympics. This meant an average of almost 14 miles every day. He completed the final short stretch of his challenge by cycling up the driveway of Nick’s house.

Richard said; “Nick’s legacy is one of calm, faith, steadfastness and kindness and it seems very wrong that the world should continue on its way without him in it. Whatever activity he was engaged in he conducted himself with dignity, perseverance and passion, guided by his Christian principles, humour and sense of decency. He was a great friend and the speed with which kidney cancer took him stunned us all. This is why we wanted to find a way to celebrate Nick’s life and help others with kidney cancer.”

Roger, 57, from Midhurst, ran 2012 miles in 2012, about 5.5 miles a day, finishing a day before the end of the year. Highlights were running along the same highway in Kenya that East Africa’s elite athletes use to train, and running in a forest in Frankfurt in shorts and a tee shirt when the temperature plummeted to minus 16 degrees.

Nick enjoyed tennis

Roger said: ‘Every step of the 1.5 million I ran was a tiny celebration of Nick’s life; every time the limbs started to pack up, the thought of these efforts helping another ‘Nick’ through our fund-raising got them working again. He was a family man, full of fun and he adored cricket. That’s how we all remember him.’

Simon’s challenges’ included cycling 2,012 miles, running 2,012 laps of a running track and swimming 2,012 lengths of a pool. In the course of accomplishing these, he took on his first ever Triathlon, completed a 10k swimming marathon in the River Dart, ran the Oxford Half Marathon and cycled in some very beautiful, but hilly, parts of England and Wales.

Simon said; “The previous Easter Nick and I had raced 80 miles together around the New Forest. In his inimitable fashion, he gave me a detailed statistical breakdown of our performance thereafter. Dave Brailsford had nothing on Nick!

Left to right: Roger Morgan-Grenville, Dr Michael Aitchison, Dr Maxine Tran, David Cullen and Richard Perkins

“I undertook a range of challenges in Nick’s name to raise funds and awareness of kidney cancer, a disease I am sadly too familiar with as my father died of it, when only 47. Nick and Dad would be very proud of everyone involved in this fundraising; of which there were many, over and above me, Richard and Roger. We still have a way to go to reach our final target which we will do all in the name of our friend whom we all miss very much, and to help kidney cancer patients in any way we can through funding this very important research.”

Roger, Richard and Simon are continuing on to raise the final £30,000 required to fully fund the PhD student and still need your support. To donate to this fund and support Kidney Cancer UK click below
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Visit Roger, Richard and Simon’s Nick Maude Memorial Fund Justgiving page where 100% of your donation will go to the research project:

• www.justgiving.com/Nick-Maude