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Journalist loses cancer battle after appeal reaches £62,000

Colin Bloomfield

A broadcasting journalist who was the subject of a regional daily-backed appeal to help tackle skin cancer has lost his battle against the illness.

Colin Bloomfield, who worked at BBC Radio Derby for 10 years as a presenter, reporter and a Derby County commentator, died in a hospice near Shrewsbury aged just 33.

His long battle against malignant melanoma spawned a charity appeal backed by the Derby Telegraph which has raised £62,000 in just over two months.

Colin set up the Colin Bloomfield Melanoma Appeal in February with the aim of raising £45,000 to enable 100 Derbyshire and East Staffordshire primary schools to have sun-cream dispensers and information about staying safe in the sun.

The target was hit in just six weeks and was then extended to £75,000 to allow a further 100 schools to provide sun protection through skin cancer charity Skcin, which operates the Sun Safe Schools project.

Colin was diagnosed with stage four melanoma in 2013 and the cancer also spread to his brain.

Radio Derby’s editor Simon Cornes said: “Reporter, producer, commentator, presenter – Colin was all of those.

“You’re lucky in radio if you’re good at one of these things but Colin’s talent was a rare one and he was extraordinarily accomplished at all of them. He made it seem easy. We know it isn’t.”

In an editorial published before Colin’s death.he Telegraph thanked its readers for an “astonishing effort” in donating to the appeal.

It read: “It has been helped by having a local personality with a high profile lending his name to the campaign to get to grips with the problem of skin cancer.

“But modest Colin would acknowledge that his long-running and well-chronicled struggles with cancer can only have been partly responsible for the massive response.

“What the figure also reflects, almost certainly, is a growing understanding that skin cancer, caused by unwise over-exposure to the sun, has to be the most needlessly-incurred of all the cancers.

“There have already been too many victims of melanoma among past generations, where the link with sunlight was not sufficiently widely recognised and publicised.

“Now that is not the case and there is absolutely no excuse for schools not drumming home the message to pupils.”

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  • April 27, 2015 at 10:16 am
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    Very sad news, and also a timely reminder to us all of what too much exposure to the sun (or sunbeds) can do to any of us.

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  • April 27, 2015 at 10:26 am
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    Terribly sad death of a talented young man. Perhaps, in the spirit of the campaign, it is important to know why (if there is a reason) Colin was so unlucky with this awful disease? Was he exposed to excess sunlight? Does that play a factor anyway? Not necessarily issues for HTFP, but education is clearly the only good thing that can come out of this. Condolences to his family and friends.

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  • April 28, 2015 at 9:56 am
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    Such a devastating loss for his family, friends and journalism. As a former news editor at BBC Radio Shropshire, I was privileged to work with Colin before and after he graduated from the University of Central Lancashire’s broadcast journalism course. He was a truly fine young man, hugely talented…and he remained so positive throughout his illness. A real inspiration.

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