Julie Blackburn meets super-fundraiser Eugene Wilson whose achievements are to be honoured in a very special way in London next week.

I had no idea you could make so much money out of cake, laughs Eugene Wilson.

Bake sales, along with open mic nights in local pubs and running marathons are some of the ways in which he has personally managed to raise the staggering sum of £37,767 since he started fundraising in 2005.

All the money has gone to the Anthony Nolan Trust, the charity that saves lives by matching individuals willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people with blood cancer and blood disorders who desperately need lifesaving transplants.

When Eugene’s daughter, Lisa, became ill with leukaemia he knew only too well what they were facing.

He had trained as a children’s nurse and was manager of paediatric services at Noble’s Hospital.

He says: ’I did my training in Alder Hey which is one of the biggest children’s hospitals in Europe and we saw every illness that there was.

’I worked on the oncology unit and looked after kids with leukaemia as well so, sadly, I did have that knowledge already but I had the knowledge as a medical practitioner not as a father with a sick daughter which is a big difference.’

A sibling usually provides the best bone marrow for leukemia patients and when Lisa’s sister, Hayley was tested she was a perfect match.

However, a bone marrow transplant is not something to be undertaken lightly as it involves knocking out the patient’s entire immune system.

In the case of a young woman like Lisa, who was just 22 at the time, there was a chance she might become sterile.

As she was then in remission she took the decision to carry on with her existing treatment instead.

Eugene recalls: ’But unfortunately she relapsed and then she got ill with VRE [a superbug which can affect people who are ill or weak].

’So that put paid to everything; she wasn’t going to have a transplant then and, from the point when they found that out, she was on palliative care.

’She had been in the Royal Liverpool Hospital but came back to the island and went into St Bridget’s Hospice.’

Lisa died in August 2005 and not long after Eugene’s one-man crusade to raise money to help others in the same situation began.

He says: ’I started running because I just wanted to give something back but then I did get something out of it because I would have conversations with myself when I’m running, or listen to my music, and psychologically it was great.

’It can become addictive because of the endorphins.’

Eugene ran his first marathon the following year and since then he has run another 12, done the Parish Walk to Peel and walked the Great Wall of China but he says that next year’s London Marathon will be his last.

He also took early retirement from his role at the hospital but later changed his mind: ’All of sudden I thought: "I could still work, I’ve still got my qualifications", so I went full circle and I’m working in Hospice now.’

I suggest he must have great empathy with the families of patients there.

’One million percent,’ he says.

’Through losing Lisa I actually know what people are going through and, in this small community, people actually do know me and they know me from the children’s ward as well.

’They say to me: "you know more than anyone what we’re going through" and I say "yeah".

’And you know what I think to myself: if you turn it on its head then out of something bad, by losing Lisa, something good’s come because the work’s still going on I’m still passing that gift, if you like, to those families.’

Eugene’s other great passion is music, playing the guitar, singing and writing songs, and he regularly holds open mic nights in pubs around the island, donating his fee to the Anthony Nolan Trust.

He says: ’It’s to raise funds but I also get the benefits of playing live music and listening to live music which I love, especially the newcomers who come along, then there’s also the beauty of raising money for charity so it’s a win-win all round.’

Next week Eugene has been invited to London, to the Anthony Nolan headquarters and laboratories, for a very special event on Wednesday (October 9).

The email from the charity reads: ’We are incredibly grateful for your amazing support over the years and as a small thank you for the incredible £37,767 you’ve raised, and the phenomenal £50,000-plus that has been raised in loving memory of Lisa, we’d like to invite you to add Lisa’s name to the Anthony Nolan Wall of Recognition, if it’s something you’d like to do.’

He will be taking daughter Hayley, her boyfriend Greg and his sister, Jacinta to the ceremony with him. They will also get a tour of the Anthony Nolan laboratories, something which Eugene has experienced already and which has given him hope for future treatments of leukaemia and other blood cancers.

He says: ’Technology has changed so much: the matches they can find now are so perfect that the chances of the rejection are lower and the chances of success higher.’

He adds that through his fundraising he has also tried to raise awareness about the charity and its work: ’Every single marathon that I’ve done and every single charity event when I’ve got my T-shirt on I get stopped all over the place and and people actually say to me: "Who is Anthony Nolan?"

’So I tell them the story. On the starting line of every single marathon that’s happened, I’m talking to a complete stranger and telling them about the Anthony Nolan.

’Then I ask them to tell me my why they’re running and that’s what gets me through the marathon: every single person I run along with tells me their story and some of the stories are just amazing.

’They’re running for daughters, sons, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives and it just blows you away.’