Longton bar owner’s bay walk to ‘give back’ for cancer treatment

Tony Brocklebank (left) and his friend Martin

The owner of Longton’s The Lemon Tree café bar, Tony Brocklebank, is to take on Rosemere Cancer Foundation’s Cross Bay Walk later this month to “give back” for treatment he’s receiving after what he thought was Long Covid turned out to be cancer.

Towards the end of last year, Tony (59), who has walked, skied and caved for most of his adult years, noticed he was “a bit chesty and breathless”.

Tony wasn’t overly worried. He had suffered a confirmed case of Covid and suspected he had caught the virus again so put his symptoms down to a slower recovery from his second bout.

In the November though, Tony suffered a seizure and was ambulanced into A&E, where doctors, suspecting a possible stroke, sent Tony for a brain scan. Tony said: “I was a man in my fifties. I hadn’t been the doctor for years.

“One minute I was laughing and joking, the next I came round in the ambulance not knowing where I was or what was going on. At the hospital, I was told I had brain cancer but that it was a secondary cancer most likely linked to either lung or bowel cancer. It turned out to be lung cancer.”

The next four months passed in what Tony, who opened The Lemon Tree two years ago after more than 20 years of running an online computer spare parts business, describes as a blur.

He was in and out of hospital for surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, at one stage not knowing if he would even see Christmas. Doctors then began treating Tony with immunotherapy, which he now receives as a monthly infusion at the chemotherapy unit at Chorley and South Ribble Hospital, which Rosemere Cancer Foundation helped to fund.

Tony said: “I don’t know how long I’ve got and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that I’m now stable and comfortable. I am able to walk the Cross Bay Walk across Morecambe Bay. It’s a walk I have done before but I want to give something back for the care, support and treatment I have received, especially from Dr Lam and his team who have been fantastic throughout.”

On the walk, which takes place in the afternoon on Saturday, 29th July, Tony will be joined by his wife Sue and Martin Eagleton, who has worked to amass other friends and family so that the group will be around 35 people strong.
Martin has also worked with Tony to encourage support for Rosemere Cancer Foundation from a number of other village businesses and helped him set up an online fundraising page on Justgiving.

Rosemere Cancer Foundation was allotted 350 places for its this year’s Cross Bay Walk. Of these, only 23 are still available. To sign up or for further information, go to www.rosemere.org.uk

Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatments and services to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated at Rosemere Cancer Centre, the region’s specialist
radiotherapy and cancer treatment centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, and at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties, including that at Chorley and South Ribble Hospital.

The charity funds cutting-edge equipment, clinical research, staff training and innovative services and initiatives that the NHS cannot afford in order to make patients’ cancer journey more effective, comfortable and stress-free.