THREE friends will be pounding the streets of London to honour the memory of Bishop’s Stortford schoolboy Tom Wall, who died of a suspected cardiac arrest while playing football.
Alastair Ward-Booth, Liam McGhee and Louis-Joseph Tarrant-Cunin were classmates of Tom at Hockerill Anglo-European College.
The 14-year-olds will be taking part in DoItForCharity’s 5k Santa Run in Greenwich on December 4, raising money for CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young).
Alastair, who lives in Stortford, said: “The loss of Tom was a tragedy, but if you look at the charity’s website you can see the number of young people this affects – 12 a week. It’s a big problem and the thing that’s important to me is that it’s preventable.”
He and his mates want to publicise CRY’s testing programme for adolescents, which is being championed locally by Johnny and Lesley Johnstone.
They have been raising money from their annual music event, Cazfest, to pay for screenings at schools since their 17-year-old daughter Caroline died suddenly. She was a student at Hockerill before transferring to Bishop’s Stortford High School to take her A-levels.
Alastair said that he and his friends were determined to do something positive after losing their own pal: “Tom was a great friend and we miss him, and we wanted to do something to show that we’re remembering him.”
Tom died after collapsing while playing football at Sawbridgeworth’s Vantorts Park on August 31, just before the end of the summer holidays.
Hockerill head Simon Dennis described him as “a quiet young man with a dry, mature sense of humour”.
His many friends joined dad Chris, mum Angela and sister Anna for his funeral service at
All Saints, Hockerill, on September 22.
To support the team, see www.justgiving.com/alastair-ward-booth; www.justgiving.com/liam-mcghee; www.justgiving.com/louis-joseph-tarrant-cunin.
