Robert Brown (1954-2008)

My brother Robert was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2008 and lived for only a further thirteen weeks. I remember the moment I heard the news only too well - I was in the departure lounge at LAX with my wife and children, returning from a holiday in California. My brother Charles called me and told me that Robert (his twin) was in hospital and had been told to expect the worst. The long flight home was a nightmare - I was too shocked to watch films/read/eat/sleep and just sat there stunned at this sudden calamitous news. As soon as we landed, I drove to my parents' house, where Robert and his wife Deborah had arrived to pass on the bad news. There followed a torturous rollercoaster period, much of it spent in The London Clinic, some at home and some in The Royal Marsden, during which his chances of survival were said, from one moment to the next, to be anything from quite good to non-existent. In reality, he had so many complications and setbacks that he was never able to begin the treatment that just might have saved him. The love and courage of my sister-in-law Deborah and their three children; Francis, Piers and Antonia, and of our remarkable parents, during this time, gave Robert the will to fight on until there was no longer any hope, and was and remains an inspiration to the rest of us.

Robert was highly successful professionally and had a very happy home life, in London and also at their beautiful second home in North Yorkshire, an area he loved and where he is now buried. He told me shortly before he died that even cut short so cruelly, he felt his had been a great life, doing so many exciting things. He treasured the twenty years he had spent with Deborah and he adored their children. He had been badly injured in the Harrods bomb in 1983, and had also survived a head-on car crash, so I suppose this gave him an increased appreciation of life thereafter.

I will remember Robert as someone I could always go to with a problem or an idea, someone I hugely enjoyed competing with at any game or sport (he and I were probably the biggest cheats in the world at Subbutteo and Scalextric and fouled each other blatantly and repeatedly at football), someone whose loyalty to Bob Dylan and to Hull City barely seemed rational (although when he died, the latter were close to the top of the Premier League, which thrilled him) and, despite the inevitable ups and downs of sibling relationships, someone I loved and respected. Life without him is a harsh new reality for us all to accept.

Robert was the kind of person who, had he lived, would have wanted to do something to help raise money to fight pancreatic cancer, in particular through earlier diagnosis, which is the big challenge. Various members of our family have subsequently done things to raise money in his memory, including his son Francis cycling from London to Paris, our brother Charlie, and Robert’s wife Deborah, running marathons and my daughter Damaris selling PCUK merchandise at school. I briefly also considered doing something energetic, but opted instead for something altogether more familiar and somewhat less tiring - a classical concert. The first such event took place at Cadogan Hall in November 2009 and raised over £37,000. Robert would probably have preferred a rock concert, although over the years he grew to enjoy classical music, notably vocal and choral music. Opera passed him by though - he once told me that after an evening at English National Opera he had counted every panel on the ceiling - I suppose other opera-goers assumed he was paying rapt attention to the super-titles!

With the help and support of my excellent colleagues and clients at Hazard Chase I am now promoting a second concert, again at Cadogan Hall. I am doing this because it is vital that fundraising is continuous. It’s human nature to rush out and do something immediately after this kind of tragedy touches your family, but all too often, that’s the end of it and there is no ongoing momentum. I think it will be a fine tribute to Robert if we can say that we have helped to make a real difference, over a sustained period, in the fight against this disease. That is certainly a legacy of which he would have been proud.

Linked to the concert there is a JustGiving page for people who wish to donate to Pancreatic Cancer UK in memory of Robert. We will also be holding an auction in aid of the charity and from February 2012 it will be possible to place bids on this site for the various lots. The auction will be concluded on the evening of the concert.

Before closing, here are some horrifying statistics: pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of death from cancer, but receives just 1% of research funding. General awareness of the disease is relatively low - perhaps because the pancreas (important to both the digestive system and the production of hormones, notably insulin) is an organ little understood by the general public. The tragic deaths of Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze have recently raised awareness of this issue and music-lovers will know that Luciano Pavarotti died of the disease in September 2007, 18 months after diagnosis, while his fellow operatic legend, Marilyn Horne, who was diagnosed in 2006, now seems to have fought it successfully with the help of innovative treatments. Over the past 40 years, survival rates for many cancers have improved significantly. The 5-year survival rate for testicular cancer is 95%, 77% for breast, 73% for uterine, 65% for prostate and 61% for cervical. The 5-year survival rate in the UK for pancreatic cancer has been the lowest of all - running at between 2% and 3%. On a more positive note, advances in treatment have occurred over the past decade, which could raise survival rates in time, and which demonstrate that there is hope of winning the battle against this disease, historically considered to be incurable.

I hope that you will wish to join us for what promises to be a wonderful concert. If you cannot attend, or you wish to do more than buy a ticket, I hope you will feel able to make a donation or an auction bid. Having seen what this cruel disease can do to a family, I know that every penny raised is vital. Robert would have been thrilled to think that we had helped even one person to survive - I just wish someone could have helped him.

James Brown