My Story

Just days before Christmas 2024 our dear friend Andy McKidd passed away so very suddenly at his home in Darlington.  This run is not only for Andy but a small and sincere gesture to ensure Nic, Kyle and Neve know that their husband and dad is still very much in peoples daily thoughts and memories.

Andy was a wonderful person to have known and call a friend. He could be funny, kind, grumpy, sincere and mischievous all in the space of a few minutes and I loved him for all of that. He was the sort of friend to get in to trouble with .... but knowing that it would all work out well in the end. ( It mainly did !) 

This will be my first Great North Run, all 13.1 miles of it. I am quite nervous but I will put the training in to get up to distance and get through it.  Working in Gateshead gives me a strong connection to the area and I know the support for all of the runners will be something special on the day. I will keep posting updates below ahead of the big day on the 7th of September 2025. 

This run will raise awareness and funds for The British Heart Foundation and more details about the great work they do can be found below. I have supported this charity for many years in memory of my Nan, Mary, and my Dad, Alan. It is fitting then that I now support them in Andy's memory. 
Wish me luck ,
Paul ( July 2025) 

We are the British Heart Foundation. We fund lifesaving medical research to beat the world's biggest killers.

Our vision is a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases. We raise money to research cures and treatments, so we can give people more time with the ones they love.

We fund around £100 million of research each year into all heart and circulatory diseases and the things that cause them. Heart diseases. Stroke. Vascular dementia. Diabetes. They're all connected, and they're all under our microscope.

Heart attacks that strike without warning, strokes that shatter futures, newborn babies born with broken hearts. These are just some of the cruelties of heart and circulatory diseases. And the brutal reality is, there is so much more for science to discover before we can beat the world’s biggest killers.

We have been funding science since 1961. Heart transplants, pacemakers, portable defibrillators and valve replacements are all breakthroughs we have helped fund.

Every donation funds scientific breakthroughs. Your donations will support the lifesaving research that turns science fiction into reality.