META name="description content="Picture shows John Crowther

Dad helps fight disease which killed his son

Picture shows John Crowther

DAD John Crowther has raised more than £11,000 to fight heart disease after it killed his baby son.

Mr Crowther, 41, of Campbell Drive, Beaconsfield, said: "I was determined to do something in his memory. It was a special thing between me and him."

The computer training consultant raised £5,600 running the London Marathon last year. Novell, an American computer company, agreed to match the money pound for pound.

Mr Crowther decided to run the marathon after his son Robert died during heart surgery when he was only 17 months old, in April 1996.

Robert was born with a damaged heart and had an operation when he was just 12 days old to fit a valve in his heart.

This operation was successful and Robert survived, but as he got older and his heart grew, he had to have another operation for a larger valve to be inserted.

All the money raised from the run will go to the British Heart Foundation.

Mr Crowther said that the run was "gruelling, but very exhilarating. I do intend to run it again."

He has also run the Wycombe Half Marathon in aid of Wycombe Hospital and Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, which helped Robert.

Mr Crowther said that the British Heart Foundation fills a niche which the Government is ignoring.

He said: "They are currently involved in 70 per cent of the heart research in this country and five per cent of the research in the world. This is all through voluntary contribu- tions."

Andrew Reid, regional director of the British Heart Foundation for the Eastern region which includes South Bucks, said: "It is a fantastic sum, it really is and he deserves all the credit.

"We are extremely grateful for his support. Heart disease affects young and old alike.

"It is tragic when it affects someone as young as 17 months old."

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