2012 Motivation Lesson from Window Cleaner, Simon Arthur

Simon Arthur with wife, Steph and son, William.

Courageous Simon’s cancer battle is over: A man who defied a rare and crippling form of cancer to raise thousands for charity has died just two days after his 31st birthday. Simon Arthur, formerly of Lockerley, passed away at his home in Bristol, where he lived with his wife, Stephanie and three-year-old son, William. In November, 2009, Simon, who had been suffering migraines, was told he had astrocytoma, a spider’s web of cancer growing across his brain. The condition was inoperable and he had three years to live. From then he decided to “be positive and enjoy what life I do have left” he told the Advertiser in March, 2010.

Simon’s father, Colin, said he was immensely proud of the way his son had coped with his condition. “He was so brave and so positive. Even when he did get down, he would soon pick himself up,” said Colin. “He said he would live life to the full and that’s just what he did. I didn’t realise he had that sort of courage in him.” Simon organised a number of charity events and even though the condition made it difficult for him to walk, he completed the Bristol half-marathon with the aid of Stephanie.

In 2010, he helped raise £6,000 which was shared between Macmillan Cancer, the Willow Foundation and Sherfield English Recreation Project. Last year, he organised a charity walk between Lockerley and Awbridge primary schools for the Starlight Foundation, which grants wishes for seriously and terminally ill children. Colin said that his son had drawn strength from the fact that he had no chance of recovery. “He would say: ‘I know what the outcome is and I’ve got no false hope.’”

Colin said that his son’s condition had deteriorated rapidly over the last month as the cancer began to grow again, but he had held on to see Christmas with his family and then his wedding anniversary, on December 29, and his birthday on January 2. He praised and thanked the care Stephanie and Simon’s mother-in-law, Diane Mead, had given Simon.

Simon’s life began in dramatic fashion when was born two months premature, weighing just 4lbs and spent the first two weeks of his life in an incubator at Salisbury District Hospital. He was brought up in Lockerley and went to the village primary school and then attended Test Valley School, in Stockbridge. After school, he trained as a chef and then worked as a builder and ran then his own window-cleaning business.