Carina Hand, 14, from Charlton Musgrove, Wincanton, and cousin Thea Grafton, 15, from Charlton Mackrell, Somerton, were inspired to take on the tough challenge by Carina's brother, Tristan, now 17, who underwent treatment for a brain tumour as a young child. Tristan's diagnosis when he was just six came as a huge shock and hit his family hard. Carina said:

"My brother, Tristan had his first epileptic fit in the spring of 2010, he seemed to be a very fit and healthy little boy. Initially we were told it was a febrile convulsion, but with subsequent fits it became apparent something else was happening. The optometrist requested more frequent eye tests, as his sight was deteriorating surprisingly quickly. Finally he had an MRI scan, which showed a 50mm ganglioma tumour and large fist sized associated cyst. He underwent nine hours of surgery two days later.

"As a family we hadn't had any family members with a brain tumour so the whole thing was very new, at the time our family didn't know much about it and I don't think we all fully understand it still. It's such an awful thing that it sort of seems unimaginable, but the reality is it's more common than we all believe it to be."

Happily, Tristan is now 17 and living life to the full, having responded well to the surgery, but Carina and Thea were inspired during the lockdown period to fundraise for families who aren't so fortunate. Carina, a pupil at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and Thea, who attends Cheltenham Ladies College – both will begin Year 11 in September - have already completed two marathons this year. The determined pair managed to tick off their first in February and their second in April, and will set out on the third on August 11th. Carina said:

"Our aim is to do one marathon each season, four in total.

"We knew that the whole lockdown and covid situation would also be affecting the diagnosis and treatment times for people with brain tumours and we wanted to try and help with this. We wanted our challenge to be not only physical but mentally challenging as well as we know that brain tumours are both physically and mentally very hard.

"On the first walk we woke up at 5:00 am so that we could be finished before the sun set because the days were so short back in February, and it was very cold, so we are looking forward to being able to start the walk later and not have to worry about having enough layers. Although we try to focus on the positives we do know that it is an extremely tiring challenge and at times we do think it is almost unmanageable.

"But we know that with each donation made the money is going to contribute hugely to someone's life. We know that every walk we do, we increase our donations massively and therefore can help the charity with each walk we do. On our second walk we wore charity signs round our necks and on our backpacks and this attracted attention from the public and boosted our donations; we had one lady who we had never met stop on the side of the road and donate £20 to us, this was a huge morale booster for us!

We would feel as though we were not only letting ourselves down but also that we were letting down all the people that have given money and The Brain Tumour Charity as well if we didn't complete one of our walks."

Fundraising is going as well as the walking, with Carina and Thea on target to raise £2,600 in total for walking all four marathons:

https://www.justgiving.com/team/Carina-Thea

Carina said: "The idea that Tristan could have not been so lucky is so incomprehensible - yet scarily, it was not unlikely. The impact would have been so horrible not only for him but to everyone around him. So knowing first hand the impact that brain tumours have and that the generous money people are donating to us is contributing to life changing help being given to families just like ours, is really pretty amazing and inspiring. By funding research, I really hope more children can have a life like Tristan."

Gina Almond, The Brain Tumour Charity's Director of Fundraising and Marketing, said: "We are extremely grateful to Carina and Thea for their fantastic fundraising and wish them all the very best.

"Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of the under 40s and, unlike other cancers, survival rates have not improved significantly in recent decades.

"We want to lead the way in changing this and fighting brain tumours on all fronts through our work.

"But it's only through the efforts of people like Carina and Thea that we'll be able to change these shocking statistics in the future and bring hope to the thousands of people who are diagnosed with a brain tumour every year."