Brother and sister team up in marathon tribute to father

Heather and James Taggart have teamed up with a group of friends to take on the 26.3-mile challenge in honour of their father Les Taggart, who died at the age of 57 in May 2010.

Les Taggart was a teacher at Benton Park School, Rawdon, Leeds. He loved sport and spent lots of time coaching and taking his children and school teams to sporting events.

The popular marathon will take the group from the Champs Élysées to Foch Avenue, through Bastille, Nation, Vincennes and les Tuileries.

The eight friends, who played rugby with James Taggart while studying at Edinburgh University, have already raised more than £5,000 in sponsorship for Yorkshire Cancer Research, a charity which funds research, treatment and diagnosis projects throughout the region.

Mr Taggart Jnr, who now lives and works in Edinburgh, said: “We wanted to give as generous a donation as possible to a charity on the anniversary of my father’s death. We decided to give to a regional charity that would channel funds into research that concentrated specifically on my father’s illness – malignant melanoma, a very aggressive form of skin cancer.

“It was my friends’ idea to take part in the Paris Marathon. They are coming from all over to take part, including London and Dubai, and there has been a varied mix of training. But whether we run, walk or crawl everyone should cross the finish line.”

Yorkshire Cancer Research, which is based in Harrogate, is a regional medical research charity which pays for around £7m a year of cancer research at its five centres at the universities of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York and their associated teaching hospitals.

Over the next 10 years, Yorkshire Cancer Research wants to slash current statistics that show 259 people die every week from cancer in the Yorkshire region alone.

The runners are keen to hear from anyone interested in sponsoring their Paris marathon challenge. People wanting to sponsor the group should visit the website www.justgiving.com/marathon-for-les-2011