Duo reach £25,000 for cancer charity

A Sheffield musical due have raised a whopping £25,000 for Weston Park Hospital playing a range of gigs around the region.
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Tuneful twosome

TOFFEE - an acronym for Two Old Fellas For Evening Entertainment’ - features Mike Lydiat and Dave Markham, who have been friends for over 20 years.

The two former-head teachers first began playing together and raising money four years ago, after Dave was diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer.

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Nik Brear
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“I knew having cancer would change my life, but I never would have expected that something so positive could come out of something that was so devastating at the time,” explained Dave, who underwent radical surgery following his diagnosis, before a course of radiotherapy at Weston Park Hospital in an attempt to stop the cancer from spreading further. The dad-of-three, from Stannington, now attends the hospital every three months for injections to control the cancer, as well as taking daily drugs to keep symptoms at bay.”

Weston Park Hospital is one of only a handful of specialist cancer hospitals in England and treats patients from all over South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire and North Derbyshire – a population of almost 1.8million people.

Dave added: “As a region, we really don’t know how lucky we are to have this specialised cancer hospital right on our doorstep, and the more we can all do to support its dedicated charity, the more hope we give to thousands of people fighting cancer now and into the future.”

The duo officially reached the £25,000 fundraising milestone for the cancer charity during a recent gig at The Ship Inn in Shalesmoor and say that reaching such a significant amount will only spur them on to do more.

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Weston Park Charity Fundraiser, Sarah Cross, said: ““Dave is living proof that a cancer diagnosis isn’t necessarily a reason to slow down or stop living life to the full and we couldn’t be more grateful to both him and Mike for raising such a tremendous amount of money.”