How widow was inspired to fund research into brain tumours

10 April 2015 ....... Pam Roberts set up the PPR Foundation Brain Tumour Research Project (PPR). The charity reaching the half million mark and is already helping to fund a lab at Wellcome Trust Brenner Building, St James's University Hospital. TJ100790a Picture Tony Johnson

It was a charity born out of tragedy, but now halfway to her £1m target, Pam Roberts tells Sarah Freeman how the PPR Foundation is pushing medical boundaries.

It’s a funny thing grief.

For three years after the death of her husband Peter, Pam Roberts admits she put up the barriers. To the outside world, even some of her closest friends and family, she appeared to have found a new strength as she adjusted to life without her childhood sweetheart.

“I was the greatest actress RADA never had,” says Pam, who was in her mid 50s when she lost Peter. “I went onto autopilot, but eventually I knew I had to go on living. I needed a focus.”

Some might have found a new hobby, moved house or taken up volunteering. Pam, however, went a little further. She decided she was going to raise £1m to fund research into the type of brain tumour which had killed her husband and many others like him.

Pam had no experience of running a charity, but she had determination in spades and five years on she, along with a dedicated group of volunteers who she has recruited along the way, has just reached the halfway point.

For the last three years, the charity, which began on her kitchen table in Ripley, has funded a research post at the University of Leeds’ Institute of Cancer and Pathology. The laboratory, based at the city’s St James’ Hospital, opened in 2011 and while relatively new it is fast emerging as a centre of excellence

“You do have to work hard to get people to take you seriously,” says Pam, looking back over the last five years. “Fortunately I already had a good relationship with the team which had looked after Peter and I just knew that there was an opportunity to make a real difference.”

The prognosis for those diagnosed with the likes of leukaemia and breast cancer have improved markedly over the last two decades. That trend is largely down to the amount of money invested in research and treatments. It’s something the area of brain tumours has traditionally lacked, so when Pam refers to it as a forgotten cancer it’s with good reason.