A little over a year after being given just months to live, a 70-year-old man is walking from St John’s to Peel in aid of the Ukrainian war effort.

David Halsall is walking along the island’s Heritage Trail today (Tuesday, July 15).

He will set off at 2.15pm and is hoping to arrive in Peel at around 4pm.

Mr Halsall is raising money for Help Ukraine – an Isle of Man based charity that is sending medical equipment and essential items direct to people in Ukraine, including its soldiers.

His journey to get to this challenge has not been an easy one, to say the least.

Mr Halsall used to work at Douglas Corporation, as part of the senior management committee, and until 2020, he was an Aikido instructor in his spare time as he is a 5th dan in this martial art.

He has always enjoyed keeping himself fit and active and used to be a keen horse rider.

However, late in 2020, Mr Halsall’s health deteriorated, and when he was in hospital with pneumonia, they noticed a tumour on his vocal chord.

He was given two months to live without surgery.

Before he could get to Aintree for his operation, he had pneumonia again and this time they didn’t think he would pull through.

He was put on end-of-life care, ‘but David had other ideas’ and started to recover. Two weeks later, he was well enough to go for surgery.

He had a 12-and-a-half hour operation in which his voice box was removed and his throat re-engineered with a bit of help from some chest muscle.

This all occurred during the coronavirus lockdown, and so he couldn’t have visitors and had to go through it all on his own.

As his wife Rona put it, losing his voice ‘has been a big thing to come to terms with’.

In summer 2021, Mr Halsall was really starting to recover and getting out for daily walks when he fell ill again with pneumonia.

This time, tests revealed he had blood cancer – multiple myeloma. Again, he was given two months to live without treatment.

But once again, he had to get past the pneumonia before he could have treatment, so it was delayed for a month.

It seemed like it was going to be too late, but he never lost faith.

Thankfully, Mr Halsall responded well to chemotherapy, and after six months, his bloods are back to normal and he is in remission.

He has been left with curvature of the spine, osteoporosis and a need for oxygen when he walks – but still he’s smiling.

Mr Halsall is taking on the huge challenge today to raise some money for Ukraine, a cause he feels very strongly about as he has friends who are Ukrainian.

Mrs Halsall said: ‘He’s a bit nervous, because it will be the furthest he’s walked in one go, but he’s looking forward to it.’

If you would like to sponsor David’s effort, you can email [email protected] or call Jim on 484722. There is also a JustGiving page to donate directly to, and a Facebook page for more information.