Dad's amazing act after son died from rare cancer caught by common mark on leg

Few people would travel five times around the world to help complete strangers, but Peter Colsen has. Completing 130 trips to collect life saving stem cells from donors across Europe, he has covered 125,000 miles in the process.

A volunteer for blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan, he started his altruistic work after his son James received two bone marrow transplants from a donor in Germany. While, tragically, James passed away, aged 13, his dad has travelled half way to the moon to do what he can to save, or at least prolong, the lives of people like his son.

Peter, 61, from Yatton Keynell, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, tells The : “I remember being in hospital with James before his transplant. The nervous wait – hour by hour – knowing we were totally reliant on one person, somewhere out there, to donate the bone marrow and another person to bring it back in time.

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“Wondering what happens if they don’t deliver that precious cargo in time. And the relief we felt when someone told us the courier had made it. When we were looking for a way to give something back, I think someone must have mentioned the idea of being a courier and it seemed right up my street.”

Once the bone marrow, or stem cells, have been donated, there is a window of just 72 hours for them to be delivered to the recipient and transplanted. This can mean covering a terrific distance - quite feasibly seeing them flown from to the UK.

Peter, whose journeys have all been within Europe, began volunteering for Anthony Nolan after selling his IT business in 2011 and was chosen as a courier for his problem-solving skills. He has made 70 trips to Germany and 15 to Poland, as well as dashes to the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and .

He also drove the length and breadth of the UK with his wife Jayne, 69, a former pharmaceutical conference organiser, during the pandemic to to different .“There have been times when I have missed my connection because my flight has been cancelled or delayed," says Peter. “But we are picked because the charity knows we can cope with that situation. You do whatever it takes to get back as quickly as possible.”

Losing their son has made Peter’s role as a courier more important than ever to the dad. James was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called myelodysplasia - usually affecting the over 60s and only diagnosed in a handful of UK children each year - after developing large yellow bruises on his legs, aged 11.

Chemotherapy proved ineffective, so doctors decided James needed a bone marrow transplant - matching him with a 45-year-old man from Germany on the donor register. James spent three months in hospital – including eight weeks in isolation – undergoing more chemotherapy to kill off his own immune system and transplant the donor cells.

Initially, the transplant was a success and James returned to school part-time with his friends, played with his dad, and spent hours in the garden with his beloved dog Minnie. But, a year later, the cancer returned and the benefits of a second transplant were short-lived.

Peter and Jayne lost James in May 2008. “It was absolutely heartbreaking,” says Peter. “It destroys you, but there’s also an element that he had been through a two-and-a-half-year fight and we were glad he wasn’t suffering anymore.”

James would have celebrated his 30th birthday earlier this month and his family, including younger sister Katie, 27, marked the occasion by sharing his favourite pepperoni pizza. Three days later, his parents were invited to the Anthony Nolan Supporters Awards at the Oxo Tower in London, where Peter received an award for creating a new website sharing travel information about the various cities that stem cell couriers may have to visit.

It now features information about 230 cities across 37 countries and Anthony Nolan is talking to charities and courier companies in different countries to share information via the same site. Peter says: “Anthony Nolan’s mum, Shirley, created the first register of potential donors 50 years ago, to help people who needed a transplant like her son. It would be lovely if we could create another worldwide register for couriers to help with that lifesaving work. It would be a wonderful feather in Anthony Nolan’s cap in their anniversary year.”

Learn more about stem cell donation at .

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