Eight-year-old Vicky Ellis has signed up for the race
ONE of the most touching aspects for those who watch the Race for Life in Marlborough on June 1 will be the messages on runners' shirts.
This year 1,500 women and girls are expected to take part in the event around Marlborough College's spacious grounds.
It is hoped that between them they will raise almost £100,000 in sponsorship for Cancer Research UK.
It has become the custom in the races - in which women can walk, jog or run - for contestants to wear their reasons for running on their shirts.
The Marlborough event covers five kilometres off-road around the college campus and women of all levels of fitness can take part.
One of those already enrolled to take part is eight-year-old Vicky Ellis, a pupil at Kennet Valley School in East Kennett.
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Her special reason for running is that her mother, Claire, had a school friend called Victoria Jobe who lived at Axford.
Victoria, who had already lost her father to cancer,
developed leukaemia. She died in 1984 at the age of 13.
Since then research, funded by events like the Race for Life, has meant that many more sufferers survive leukaemia and other cancers.
Vicky Ellis, who lives in Barrow Close in Marlborough, has grown up knowing that she was named after her mother's friend Victoria Jobe.
Although she never knew her namesake and has only learned about her from her mother, Vicky said: "That is why I want to go in the Race For Life."
Victoria's mother, Janet Greenfield, who formerly worked in Waitrose in Marlborough before moving to Liskeard, Cornwall, with her second husband Neil, will be returning to Wiltshire to take part in the race with Vicky.
Mrs Greenfield said: "It is lovely that through little Vicky my daughter's name is remembered and lives on."
There is still time to enter. Details from 0871 641 2279 or www.raceforlife.org.
Any other Race for Life runners who have story to tell about why they are taking part should ring Gazette reporter Nigel Kerton on (01672) 514072 or e mail nkerton@newswilts.co.uk with details and your contact numbers.
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