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Supporting charities who cared for us when we lost our boys in 2020

Raised over £40,000 in their memory

10/10/2026

💙💙 £40,000 RAISED IN MEMORY OF OUR TWIN BOYS 💙💙

We are absolutely delighted to share with you all that we have now raised an incredible £40,000 in memory of James & Ryan.

Words cannot express how much this means to us. Our boys will forever be a part of everything we do. We love and miss them every day.

Knowing that their little lives continue to make such a difference to so many other families is something we will always be grateful for.

Every single donation, fundraiser, message of support that we have received has helped us reach this milestone and we are proud and humbled by all the love, support and kindness we have been shown along the way. We set out to raise £1000 five years ago and would never have believed we would get to where we have today.

A huge thank you goes to our friends and family. They have taken on their own challenges and joined me for many of mine also. We'd like to say a big thank you to all the businesses and individuals who have donated prizes to our raffles or helped raise money in our boys name. There are just too many of you to thank individually.

And lastly to our beautiful boys, we hope we've made you proud. You will always be our babies, our greatest loss but also our greatest reason to keep going. So much of what we have now including our beautiful daughters is because of you and we will keep going and carry you in our hearts every step of journey ahead. 💙💙

All in aid of the three charities that looked after us;

Helen & Douglas House
SSNAP (Support for the Sick Newborn and their Parents)
Oxford Hospitals Charity

09/10/2026

💙 Today marks the official start of babyloss awareness week 2026. 💙

It's not until you experience baby loss that you truly appreciate just how many people lose babies.

I've always felt it an absolute privilege that by sharing our story of James & Ryan that I've got to hear so many of your stories too.

I say stories but it's more than that. It's real. It's our life that we carry with us every day. Our babies that never made it are still a part of us whether we say goodbye at the very first scan or when they are born as our perfect little humans.

We may not share it out loud every single day. I've certainly found that starting a next chapter of school pick ups, there is another whole world that don't know what we've been through. But that's ok. I don't know their stories either and there are more of us out there than we ever truly know. In fact I would be suprised if there wasn't more just within Katie's playground alone.

However by sharing our story when we can, I hope it allows others to feel comfortable sharing their stories too if they so wish.

💙💙

06/10/2026

First run for a couple of weeks and my word hasn't it got dark all of a sudden!

Wearing a head torch and all the neighbourhood cats eyes light up as they look at you and then all the porch lights on the estate ping on as you run up the road. Good fun!

04/10/2026

Yesterday was spent mainly in the garden. We've taken out some of the patio and big bushes to make more grass for the girls to play.

I'd finally finished and was sat down admiring how much bigger it looked when a butterfly came down to see me, flew all around the new bit of garden and rested on the tree.

Obviously I went up to see it. No way! It had a broken wing just like our visit from the James butterfly at Ronald Mcdonald House when we were with Ryan at the hospital.

We made the new garden for the girls to play in, never did I expect the boys to come and play in it too.

After not knowing if I should share a picture of James last week maybe this was also his way of letting me share him with you all in butterfly form... who knows! 💙🦋💙

Does anyone else ever think they get visits from beyond???

26/09/2026

Another emotional day.

You'd think it would get easier by our 5th Helen & Douglas House memorial day. I think this one was actually one of the hardest yet.

We didn't take the girls this year, so it was just Siobhan and Myself. The last couple of years I've spoken about how having the girls is a nice distraction that breaks the service up a bit with them doing silly things or making noises at funny but inappropriate times. This year we didn't have any of that and I guess it let us reflect a lot more.

Seeing all the candles on the table of all the children gone too soon really brought home just how many children and babies never get to grow old like we do. There was enough candles that in 30 years time those children could easily have been all of us.

It was a lovely service as always though. We managed to smuggle some cake home for the girls. (Toffee apple and cinnamon, it was delightful). The girls still wanted their own little memorial time so we lit 2 candles at home for James & Ryan (and grandad David, great nanny Ethel, Monty the dog and anyone else the girls could think of that were no longer here).

The girls still don't really understand death yet. Katie asked me yesterday 'how old will I be when you die daddy, because I don't want to be on my own' which was sad but also meant I could reassure her that hopefully it'll be a long long time away so there's no need to worry about things like that.

Now to sit down and recover with a pizza!

P.s. It's also coincidentally NICU remembrance day today so at least we got both tough days out the way in one go this year. 😅

💙 James 💙 5/8/2020 💙 Ryan 💙
💙 Forever our baby boys 💙

P.p.s I'm still never 100% sure if I'm comfortable sharing James online. I know I have in the past. Always an awkward one. But I also feel guilty covering his little face too. I feel the picture was a part of our day though so I don't want to not share it. I'm going covered this time. 🤷‍♂️

17/09/2026

All jokes aside, the challenges we take on in the boys memory are generally... well, challenging for us!

As a non runner my first year of a mile a day was hard. Not as hard as throwing myself out of an aeroplane and then throwing up 3 times on the way down though. That's the whole point. It's meant to be putting us out of our comfort zone.

So I just want to put into perspective how my brother in law Chris Simpson and friend James Rooney are feeling after "deciding" to take on the Oxford Half Marathon for SSNAP this year.

Chris stopped running almost completely after he had to pull out of the Paris marathon last year. Having about 10 weeks to train from nothing is hard but his training is going well and I'm confident, although no chance of any PB's, he will finish.

Rooney on the other hand... as much as we laugh and have some banter about it, it's going to be hard. Like, really hard. He's out there trying. But when you've basically done nothing for years and are carrying a little extra timber it's pretty bleak. Fair play to him, he's putting some runs in, albeit way short of where he needs to be, and in his own words, sounds like a beached whale at the end, but he's doing it. I have every faith he'll get to the end and I'm even more confident that he will actually be broken by it too. I've done a run at Oxford with virtually no training, had my ankle break down and limped half of it. It's soul destroying and takes a lot of grit. So as much as we like to take the mickey a little bit, all I can say is fair play to both of them and thank you for raising money in memory of our boys.

I believe we are approx £190 shy of the amazing £40,000 mark now so if you are able to help either of them I know they'll appreciate it and a huge thank you to those who have already donated!

Their pages are below;

Chris - https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/br-4umy3djzp6u2-2376732-charity-entry-oxford-half-2026

Rooney-
https://www.justgiving.com/page/james-rooney-1

11/09/2026

On this day, September 11th, 6 years ago, we said goodbye to our twins.

I've never really appreciated the significance of being twins and this date before.

I'm not a great one for remembering dates anyway, there are almost too many big moments to get caught up in all of them.

But I'll go for a run tonight in our boys honour and remember the really strange funeral we had during covid times, wearing face masks so all the snot from crying had nowhere to go 🤣 lovely. We were lucky that restrictions got lifted to 20 people from just 5, a few days before the funeral so some of our family could come and 'meet' and also say goodbye to our boys.

We were told to sit spaced apart and pretty sure every single one of us just broke protocol and sat next to each other. When the worst has already happened, who really cared in that moment.

There was also plenty of hugging. It felt like a rare moment of almost normality inside a strange world we were living in at that time.

06/09/2026

'Daddy, can you read me what it says'

I always check that Katie is happy with the photos I share of her. This time she also asked could I read her what I'd written.

It turns out, I absolutely can't read the words out loud. It took me back to trying to read a book at the boys funeral. It's one thing writing about the boys. It's a totally different one talking about them.

'Why are you both crying daddy'

Haha one day you'll understand kid. But for now you can find it funny 😅

04/09/2026

That Friday feeling...

First 2 half days at school completed. A couple of minor nervous wobbles on the way in but she's enjoyed herself and looking forward to going back next week.

Success.

We treated her to a babycino to say well done. Went to order and she said actually can I have a milkshake now! 🤨 Haha she's growing up already!

Address

Oxford

Website

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/br-4umy3djzp6u2-2376732-charity-entry-oxford-half-2026

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