April 1995
Phone call from my brother in the UK. Following a fit in February, our father had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and had just undergone an emergency operation. He died in November of the same year.
March 2018
Phone call from my brother in the UK. Following severe headaches, our sister had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and required an emergency operation. She died just over a year later after another, inoperable, tumour had been found.
March 2020
Ten months after my sister’s death. Phone call from my sister-in-law in the UK. My brother had collapsed and died, suddenly, after having experienced difficulty in breathing for a couple of weeks.
These events have made me reassess what I do in my life and have signalled to me to use the time I have left in a different way. I am fortunate. I have an incredibly supportive wife and two wonderful sons here in Japan, and a marvellous family in the UK, including my healthy 90-year-old mother who has borne these events with distinct dignity.
So, in January 2024, I took a break from work for a year or so to give myself some time. My first day after leaving work was my 56th birthday — the age at which my brother had died and two years older than that at which my sister had died.
The first use of this time is to be spent on TwoWheelsJapan, a project to raise funds for The Brain Tumour Charity in the UK and The Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, through cycling to the north, east, south and west of each of the Japanese mainland islands (Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Hokkaido), starting in May 2024.
Andrew Perons, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, April 2024