A Letter from the Managing Director

In the past few years, some of you may have noticed that I have not been as available as normal when contacting Hewits, and I understand there have been quite a few of you asking after me at trade fairs, which I’ve had to stop attending. I’ve been sitting on the fence for some time about whether or not to share publicly what has been going on, and after recently deciding to start a fundraiser (more on that later) I have decided that now is the time.

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with early stage 4 Prostate Cancer out of the blue. In the time since then I have undergone 25 months of hormone therapy, a month of daily radiotherapy, and 7 months of chemotherapy, with the latter finishing in August of this year. It may sound crazy to many of you, but I’ve kept on working throughout my treatment, even through the radiotherapy, working mornings before going for treatment in the afternoon. Over time I have roughly halved my hours and moved onto a four-day week. At the worst of it, I’ve gone for naps during the day in my office, but I’ve tried all the way to keep going as normal, and not let myself give in. I won’t say that this has been easy, far from it, but so far, I have thankfully managed to get through this quite well in comparison to how it could have gone, and as much as it can be hard, I try to keep a positive outlook on it.

My family & church community have been with me throughout, and my colleagues at Hewits have been a great help too. Without the support and understanding I’ve received from everyone these past few years I don’t know how I could have coped through this, so they will always have my heartfelt thanks. A special mention must go to my son, Andrew, who has taken a huge burden off my shoulders these last three years.

Andrew and I inside the Tannery

Knowing what an impact the treatment could have on my body, I decided at the start that I wanted to keep my fitness up. I kept up my weekly badminton sessions at my local church, kept on putting in hard days gardening in the summers, and continued with a daily challenge started by my daughter-in-law during lockdown to walk 10,000 steps a day. 6 months after my diagnosis my wife and I bought a working cocker spaniel puppy, Taz, and taking her out every day for her walks has been a big help towards this.

Whilst there have been times that I have not managed my 10,000 steps, I’m really proud of how I’ve done keeping it up. I think my fitness has had a big impact on how well I’ve coped over the past few years – it’s not often that I have days where I just don’t feel up to anything and even then I have a Taz demanding walks so she has been a godsend – and that has led me on to what I’ve been doing this past month.

At the end of September, my brother-in-law came across a running challenge setup by Prostate Cancer Research to run 50 miles in October. I am not a runner but the next day I had a go at trying to jog my morning walk with Taz, and surprised myself by managing to go 1.4 miles! Admittedly I had breaks, and my mad puppy was going much faster than I was, but I decided that I wanted to try and do the full 50 miles for the month. I’m now 3 weeks in, I’ve jogged a total of 41 miles, am becoming a lot fitter and, thanks to the generous donations of family & friends, I’ve raised nearly £900 in the process! I’m full of aches, and Taz and I have gotten drenched a couple of times, but I’m so glad that I decided to do this challenge as not only has it been a big help and a motivator for me, but now it’s going to help fund research that will hopefully help others in my situation too.

Taz and I on one of our morning jogs

This is not the first fundraiser I have been involved with - last year, myself & various church members, who had all recently been diagnosed with cancer too, organised a fundraiser ceilidh. What started out as a small idea turned into a massive church & community event, and with ticket sales, a raffle, and donations, we raised over £4,000 for the Western General Hospital Cancer Department in Edinburgh. The staff there have done an amazing job looking after me this whole time, and I’m indebted for the amazing care and treatment I have received.

My wife, Caroline and I outside the Tannery

Whilst I don’t know what is around the corner for my cancer, I’m going to continue as I have so far. I’ll still be at work when I’m able, and going forward I’ll try to keep up my jogging (depending on our Scottish weather). I wanted to share my story, both to raise awareness about prostate cancer for those reading, and to, hopefully, raise more funding towards new research to beat it. Whilst my situation is as it is, I’m hopeful that one day others will have newer and more advanced treatments available to them, and possibly even a cure. If you decide to support me by donating to this fundraiser, you can help make this a reality.

Roger Barlee
Managing Director – J Hewit & Sons Ltd