In August 2013, my nephew Skye Hall, was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. He was 5 years old. Over the next 12 months, Skye faced a gruelling treatment programme including multiple brain surgeries, high dose chemo and radio therapy and constant rehabilitation. On 29 August last year, Skye died at home. Several days later, the treatment protocol that Skye was on was suspended from UK hospitals due to numerous cases of neuro-toxicity (poisoning of the brain) as a result of the treatment that Skye and others like him had been given.

There is a desperate need for alternative and innovative treatment for childhood brain tumours. Pharmaceutical companies and Departments of Health do not want to fund it as the numbers a few, despite them being so vulnerable. Blue Skye Thinking are currently working in close consultation with Professor Steven Clifford at the Sir James Spence Institute, Newcastle University in the UK, to establish the most urgent funding needs for research programmes. The Northern Institute for Cancer Research work at a National and International level to try and discover better ways of treating brain tumours. Blue Skye Thinking needs to raise £120,000 to fund a PhD scientist to help to unlock the science behind this devastating disease and get one step closer to a cure. The funding must be in place by May 2015 and we are two thirds of the way there. Blue Skye Thinking is run by volunteers and all money donated goes directly to the forefront of Research and Treatment.