After a decade raising money for cancer charities, Lynne is fighting the disease herself

LYING on a recliner, tubes piercing her swollen arm, the black bag containing chemotherapy medicine looming above her like a dark cloud, Lynne McNicoll’s mind is far away from the realities of the pastel green room in Edinburgh’s Western General.

During the hours she spends looking out of the hospital window, her body fighting its own battle against breast cancer, she’s dreaming of the beautifully designed retreat she’s dedicated the last few years of her life to building.

It’s on the banks of Loch Venachar where families of children with cancer can escape the grinding day-to-day existence of living with a potentially terminal illness.

The 58-year-old’s charity, It’s Good 2 Give, will see construction begin on the building near Callander next month just at a time when her chemotherapy will be complete and, she says, she’ll be back to being “ordinary”.

Not that going to Holyrood Palace when the Queen visits Edinburgh this summer to collect her OBE is ordinary.

Lynne was among those named as part of the Queen’s birthday honours last week for her near-decade of charity work.

She raised hundreds of thousands for the Teenage Cancer Trust before launching her own endeavour from her Craiglockhart home five years ago and raising more than a million. And although she’s already been named Edinburgh’s Citizen of the Year by the city’s Lord Provost, the letter from Buckingham Palace was, she says, “astonishing”.

“It was a great boost at a time when I was feeling really horrible,” she says. “I couldn’t believe it when I got the letter.

“Of course the Ripple Retreat will be the best reward ever but it is lovely to have that recognition.

“It gives you a buzz but I also hope it will help open more doors for us in terms of the future funding of the Retreat.

“We’ve £1.1m in the bank and hope to have £1.25m by the end of the year, that gives us enough to build it, with a contingency fund, fit it out and first year of maintenance. After that the fundraising will be for running costs.”

Despite her illness, Lynne has never stopped. Right now she’s arranging an annual Blingo event, calling and emailing everyone and anyone to drum up fantastic prizes for the sold-out event.

After her latest chemo session on Thursday she headed to Glasgow to speak at the Scottish Home Awards, again to drum up more donations.

But the cancer treatment has taken its toll since her diagnosis in January. “The cumulative effect of the chemotherapy is horrible. I’ve had some awful moments with it including emergency surgery for an abscess and every side effect you can think of, constipation, mouth ulcers and periods of depression. It’s been extremely frustrating.”

The irony of a cancer charity campaigner being hit with the disease is not lost on Lynne. “It has given me much greater insight into what the children go through and they do it all with such good humour and smiles on their faces, they’re inspirational.

“And if something was to go wrong and I have no reason to think it will at least I’ll have had 58 wonderful years. The children who we’ve lost over the years never even had that, so I’ve really got very little to complain about.”

Lynne began her fundraising almost 10 years ago when she turned 49 in December 2005. “I was going into my 50th year and I thought I want to celebrate that milestone birthday by doing something, by giving something back.

“My husband Ian had testicular cancer 15 years ago, and he’d only needed surgery thankfully, but when we’d been at the oncology department I had seen children there obviously receiving treatment and in my naivety I had never considered children and young people getting and dealing with cancer. I just knew that I wanted to do something to help them.”

She adds: “Initially I thought I might raise £5,000 but Ian said that was barely a challenge I should make it £1,000 for every year of my life. I was quite worried because I’d barely raised 50p before.

“I spoke to the Teenage Cancer Trust about what I wanted to do, and they were a small charity then and were all for it my only stipulation was that any money had to stay in Scotland.”

There was a trek in the Sahara and bingo nights and Lynne raised £54,000 in her first year.

Four years later that had grown to £650,000 and the money was used to fund a new facility for teenagers with cancer at Edinburgh’s Sick Children’s Hospital.

“By that point TCT was becoming much bigger in Scotland and I’d realised how much I loved doing the fundraising. I’ve always been inspired by the children I’ve met and their families and I wanted to do something more local to help them, so I spoke to a lawyer and we established It’s Good 2 Give.”

The charity whose patrons include Dr Who actor Peter Capaldi, Scottish running star Lynsey Sharp, and Forth FM

DJ Grant Stott offers practical support for families coping with a child with cancer from packs of essentials for stays in hospital to workshops for kids and help for their parents.

While Lynne has been a tower of strength for families who have lost their children to cancer, she experienced loss herself three years ago when her stepson, Andrew, was killed in a road accident. The 43-year-old was cycling when he was hit by a lorry.

But in true McNicoll style, she and Ian, used their grief to begin a campaign in Andrew’s name for safer cycling on Edinburgh’s roads.

Her main focus at the moment though is to get well and get the Ripple Retreat up and running. “It will be for one family at a time, to go somewhere peaceful, away from hospitals and busy lives and just be together. Or it can be active we’ll have bikes there and possibly a boat as it will have its own pier, and a beautiful garden. I’ve met so many wonderful people willing to help.

“It’s all been done by continuous fundraising my mantra is if you don’t ask you don’t get.

“And I have wonderful volunteers who’ve trekked to the North Pole, climbed Kilimanjaro, done all sorts. We’ve even had one amazing £100,000 anonymous donation too.

“It’s been hard work, but I love hard work and people seem to respond to that. And then they meet the families and hear what they’re going through, and who could fail to be inspired by them?

“When I first met teenagers with cancer I knew I couldn’t stop doing this for them.”

She’s such a dynamo it’s hard to believe anything could stop her certainly not cancer. “I just want to get well and feel fit enough to go at it again properly. I can’t wait to be ordinary again, getting my cappuccino in the morning, going swimming and cycling to get my weight down, having meetings, seeing people. I would have gone quite mad without social media keeping me in touch.

“The last five years have been an amazing time, the last five months have not a lot of tears have been shed.

“Chemo has been the most brutal thing I’ve done in my life. I sit for three hours as it gets pumped into me and the really toxic one comes in a black bag, it might as well have a skull and crossbones on it, psychologically it’s not great.

“I’m going to do something about that when I’m better. To get nicer bags like the ones they have in America.

“Also, you’re not allowed anyone with you while you sit there and I think that’s barbaric.

“To be honest the east of Scotland needs a new cancer centre, it’s all very disjointed. I’ll get the retreat up and running first then I’ll be looking at these other things.”