Fighting For Life

In a bizarre coincidence, two of my children came close to something dreadful happening to them in two completely separate gas leak incidents in the past few days.

And I also found myself helping to tend to a close friend who had collapsed suddenly and had to be taken to hospital.

Inevitably, such incidents remind us of the fragility of our lives.

It was sad to hear of the death of Pat Pilkington (above), a remarkable woman who, along with Penny Brohn, helped found the Bristol Cancer Help Centre (now Penny Brohn Cancer Care).

Pat, whom I had the privilege to meet and interview, was in a way an "ordinary" woman who did extraordinary things, making so many people take a second look at the ways in which we had been conditioned to deal with cancer.

She was the best kind of revolutionary: quiet, effective, steely, charming, successful and modest.