Longton bar owner’s charity bay walk after Long Covid turned out to be cancer

At the end of last year, Tony Brocklebank, who has walked, skied and caved for most of his adult years, noticed he was “a bit chesty and breathless”.

The 59-year-old owner of the Lemon Tree in Liverpool Road, wasn’t overly worried. He had suffered a confirmed case of Covid and suspected he had caught the virus again.

But in November he suffered a seizure and was ambulanced into A&E, where doctors, suspecting a possible stroke, sent Tony for a brain scan.

Tony said: “I was a man in my fifties. I hadn’t been the doctor for years.

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“One minute I was laughing and joking, the next I came round in the ambulance not knowing where I was or what was going on.

"At the hospital, I was told I had brain cancer but that it was a secondary cancer most likely linked to either lung or bowel cancer. It turned out to be lung cancer.”

The next four months passed in what Tony describes as a blur. He was in and out of hospital for surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, at one stage not knowing if he would even see Christmas.

Doctors then began treating Tony with immunotherapy, which he now receives as a monthly infusion at the chemotherapy unit at Chorley and South Ribble Hospital, which Rosemere Cancer Foundation helped to fund.

Tony said: “I don’t know how long I’ve got and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that I’m now stable and comfortable. I am able to walk the Cross Bay

Walk across Morecambe Bay. It’s a walk I have done before but I want to give something back for the care, support and treatment I have received, especially from Dr Lam and his team who have been fantastic throughout."

The Rosemere Cancer Foundation’s Cross-Bay Walk

On the walk, which takes place on July 29, Tony will be joined by his wife Sue and Martin Eagleton, who has worked to amass a 35-strong group of friends and family.

Rosemere Cancer Foundation was allotted 350 places for its this year’s Cross Bay Walk. Of these, only 23 are still available. To sign up or for further information, go to www.rosemere.org.uk