Sudders’ legacy

Aug 20 2008 by Andrew Flynn, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

TODAY’S sad news that Examiner reporter Adrian Sudbury has lost his fight with leukaemia will bring a huge surge of sympathy not just from readers of this newspaper but from people the world over.

Through his award winning blog Adrian – known as Sudders – has shared every emotion of his 18 month battle with the disease and most recently the cruel news that after chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and various types of pioneering treatment, tests showed that his bone marrow transplant had not worked after all. In May doctors told him he had just weeks or months to live.

Baldy’s Blog, as he came to call it, was never maudling and often humorous. Readers the world over shared his struggles with growing admiration.

But the greatest tributes will be for Sudders’ enduring legacy following his Sign Up For Sudders campaign launched after he received the news that his leukaemia was terminal.

It was a campaign that Adrian was to take to the very top. He met Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Education Secretary Ed Balls, who were all moved by Adrian’s impassioned plea and supported his campaign to get more people to sign up as bone marrow donors. He also wanted the Government to make sure all young people in the UK – especially 17 and 18-year-olds – are educated about donation as standard.

It is a wonderful tribute to the calm and dignified tenacity and determination of Adrian that when the school term starts in September, the Government will be sending out education packs about blood, bone marrow and organ donation to all schools and colleges in UK, along with a letter to teachers, asking them to deliver talks about the issue to young people.

A fitting legacy of a remarkable young man.