Marianne's Kiltwalk Tradition
Friday 8 September 2023
Marianne shares her story of walking the Kiltwalk in memory of her Dad. She also tells us about bringing her son to the Wee Walk, making a new tradition for her family.
My name’s Marianne and I started fundraising for Bowel Cancer UK in 2016 after my Dad John was told that after two years of living with cancer, it was no longer treatable. In October 2018 at the age of 64, my Dad passed away at home peacefully surrounded by family.
His legacy lives on however as we fundraise in his name. It’s because of him that we started running an annual boot camp now named ‘The John Fraser Memorial Bootcamp’, which has been a huge success over the years and we had our sixth event in 2022. Alongside this, I like to set myself personal challenges. In 2019, I took on my biggest challenge yet which was Edinburgh’s Kiltwalk, a marathon length walk.
My extremely supportive partner Craig and I took on the challenge together. The event was so well organised and the support from the public was incredible. As we reached the finish line, I was so overwhelmed that I cried. Completing this huge challenge just 11 months after losing my Dad with such an amazing partner was really humbling. It’s hard to explain, but for the first time in a long time, I felt pure joy and happiness. I really started to believe in myself again after many dark days and this is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Unknowingly this was our last big fundraising event for a while as COVID then hit. However, it wasn’t all bad as Craig and I were able to expand our little family, and I gave birth to our son Lucas John in May 2021. After Lucas was born, I wanted to find an event we could do as a family in memory of his Grandad. I received an email from Edinburgh Kiltwalk saying the event was going to start again in September 2022 and this felt like the perfect tradition we could start with our son.
On 18 September 2022, Craig, our 16 month old son Lucas and I took part in the Kiltwalk Wee Wander, a five mile route. For something that I thought might be stressful with a small child, it was actually a really enjoyable experience. There was a marching band playing and Lucas was running around, taking it all in. As we crossed the finish line, they announced Lucas’ name over the microphone. We’ve decided to make it a new family tradition to take part each year, and hopefully we can include other members of the family. I can’t wait to watch Lucas grow and tell him stories about his Grandpa and his amazing strength, and look back year on year at how much we have achieved in his name.
- Register for The Kiltwalk
- Explore other ways to support us
- Learn about the symptoms of bowel cancer
