Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw has revealed that he will fulfil his wife’s dying wish by running the TCS London Marathon to raise money to develop a new diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer which could save thousands of lives. The acrot, who has played Bob Hope in the ITV soap for 25 years, last ran the London Marathon in 2015, but said "it just felt right" to return to support the event’s charity of the year, Pancreatic Cancer UK, on what would have been the couple’s 24th wedding anniversary. Ruth was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late 2015 and when she died at the age of 43 in April 2017, she left a message asking him to run for the charity if he ever did the London Marathon again.
"She left all her friends and family a card to read after she died, and in it she said ‘if you run London again will you do it for pancreatic cancer?'" he told the PA news agency. "She also then added something like ‘no pressure, if you don’t fancy it don’t’ – which is very Ruth.” The actor has run the London Marathon 15 times before – and achieved his personal best of two hours, 58 minutes and 49 seconds there in 2006 – but has not taken part since Ruth’s diagnosis.
He said: "I could have got a place the next year but we didn’t know how she was going to be. It just didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to spend all that time training because it is a big commitment when you’re training and being out of the house all the time.
And then I just never really felt l.
