SHIRLEY Garman’s dying wish to raise £1 million towards vital medical research could soon become reality as her friends and fellow volunteers attempt to break new records in her memory this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

With already £870,000 collected over the past 19 years the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Swindon & North Wiltshire Group is urging generous donors, supporters, survivors, patients and their families to make this October count and help to find a cure for the UK’s second biggest killer after coronory heart disease.

The group’s volunteers will leave nothing to chance with not one but three fundraising campaigns and events on the schedule next month.

On Thursday, the team will stage its annual Ladies Pink Pamper Night at the Marriott Hotel at 7pm. Businesses, schools and families will be invited to hold and compete in their own mini Bake-Offs on October 17.

Firms across town are also being urged to back the charity this October by sponsoring events or simply pledging funds to research.

“The Swindon & North Wiltshire group is striving for what is known as ‘Shirley’s dream’ to raise £1m,” said Lynn Parfrey, group lead.

“Shirley founded the group in Swindon in 1995. She also had breast cancer. She went into remission but she was diagnosed in 2008 with a secondary cancer – it attacked her brain – and she died in September 2009. She was 63.

“On her deathbed she summoned my husband Paul and I and begged us to take the group over. Her goal was to raise £1m and that’s what everybody is aiming for. We are £130,000 short.

“So it’s about getting people on board and making October a focus point.”

While the group, a local branch of national charity Break-through Breast Cancer, will continue to concentrate its efforts on the condition itself, it is also keen to raise money and awareness of secondary cancer this year.

Breast cancer starts as a lump in the breast – this is known as primary breast cancer. Secondary cancer occurs when cells break away and form a new cancer in the bones, lungs, liver, or occasionally the brain.

“This October, Breakthrough’s aim is to unite the public, under a rallying cry that will not only bring them into the Breakthrough family, supporting our life-saving research, but also enable them to raise their voice on one of the most pressing issues facing secondary breast cancer patients in the UK today – access to drugs,” added the 57-year-old from Haydon Wick.

“There are drugs out there but they won’t sell them because they are too expensive.

“The goal is to raise awareness of Breakthrough Breast Cancer and the work that they do and try to prevent lives being lost.”