Wee Clara (6) joins family run in memory of her mum who died of pancreatic cancer
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THE family of a former Inverness woman who died of pancreatic cancer has rallied to raise thousands of pounds for research into the disease.
Abigail Beadle, née McLaughlan, who attended Charleston Academy, settled in Kidderminster with husband Dan and their six-year-old daughter Clara.
In July this year, only a few weeks after the sudden death of her mother Ruth McLaughlan on June 23, the 38-year-old PA with National Highways was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in September.
Mrs McLaughlan took a seizure on her first day back at her work as a paralegal with an Inverness firm of solicitors after being off with Covid.
It was a terrible double blow to the family losing a granny and her daughter so suddenly and they are still struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.
On November 30, Mr Beadle and a small group of family between them completed a 472-mile running challenge in memory of the devoted mum and at the same time smashed their £6000 target for Cancer Research UK by bringing in sponsorship totalling £7232.
The distance the runners totalled between them is the mileage between Abi’s home near Birmingham and Urquhart New Cemetery near Conon Bridge, where she is buried beside her mother Ruth (61), who latterly lived in Golspie with her husband Billy, a secondary school teacher in Inverness.
Mr Beadle said: “It was my siblings who came up with the idea of doing something in memory of Abi, and along with me there was a core of seven runners, mostly family.
“The final day required only a one-mile run to complete the distance and Clara came out and ran with us, bless her. She was determined to keep going and said ‘I want to finish running for mummy’.
“The money we raised is being put towards pancreatic cancer research specifically.”
Mr Beadle works for a Christian charity and he said that it was his wife’s faith that helped her through the final days, adding that it was particularly hard for his daughter at such a tender age to understand why her “gangy” and then her mother were so suddenly lost to her.
He said: “She is understandably up and down. Abi was so invested in Clara. She was just a wonderful mother.”
Mr McLaughlan said that there is evidence that there could be a link between Covid and taking seizures.
He said: “To lose your wife of 44 years and then Abigail, one of our daughters, of 38 years in 12 weeks of her mum dying, there are moments when the sadness is quite debilitating.”
