On 20th July 1994 the celebrated British musician and entertainer Roy Castle embarked on an epic three-day journey across the UK.
This journey, by coach, plane and most famously by train, was subsequently called the Tour of Hope. Its object was to raise both the profile of lung cancer and, more materially, funds for essential research.
Roy had advanced lung cancer and was critically ill. In fact, he was so ill that the Tour nearly didn’t happen.
“Fiona [Castle] rang me a couple of days before it was due to start,” recalled Professor Ray Donnelly MBE, founder of Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. “She said ‘I don’t think we can do this. He isn’t very well.’ But Roy being Roy, he was adamant he wanted to do it.”
“Then, when we were travelling from London to Liverpool the day before, Pauline Murphy, the first lung cancer support nurse in this country came to me and said, ‘I’m not sure he’s breathing’. That’s how poorly he was.”
Yet, when the train pulled into Liverpool Lime Street station, the crowd of supporters and media gathered to greet him were largely unaware of the severity of his condition.
Dedication was his watchword
Roy stepped down onto the platform, waving his arms and dazzling everyone with his big beaming smile. From that point on, he conducted countless interviews as he put a human face to lung cancer.
At each stop along the route, more crowds gathered, in their hundreds and thousands. Roy’s courage and sheer humanity touched them all, and the donations rolled in, eventually totalling over £1million.
Sadly, he died on 2nd September 1994, just weeks after concluding the Tour of Hope.
Roy Castle’s selfless dedication helped pave the way to increased research worldwide and thereby to breakthroughs in care and treatments.
A legacy of hope
His legacy also includes policy developments such as the ban on smoking in public places, introduced in stages across the UK as a direct result of campaigning by the charity that now proudly bears his name, Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.
Following his death, Roy’s widow, Fiona, took up the challenge of keeping lung cancer high on the public health agenda – a role she still fulfils to this day. In 2023, Fiona, together with her colleagues Cathy Brokenshire and Mandee Lucas, received a Special Recognition Award given unanimously by the three UK GLCC member organisations for their media work to promote lung cancer screening.
Learn more about Roy Castle’s enduring contribution to lung cancer advocacy here:
Interview with Fiona Castle video
