My wife Sue is a bespoke tailor from Blackpool (writes Alan Newman). One of her oft-repeated claims to fame is that she made Captain Scarlet's outfit. More accurately, she made the suit for the employee who acted as Captain Scarlet in the Blackpool Lewis's store Christmas grotto five decades ago as her tailoring apprenticeship test!

Sue became a good runner, with a marathon best of 3:29:07 in London in 1993. She's also a double survivor of cervical cancer and, more recently, stage 4 neck and throat cancer, and she's battling on as a W70 master athlete. So imagine our thoughts when we heard the powerful story of the two-time cancer survivor, charity fundraiser, and former Blackpool goalkeeper Lloyd Scott, MBE.

On Sunday 23 April 2023, the Stepney-born 61-year-old from Theydon Bois, Essex, will don the bright red suit of Captain Scarlet to battle the Mysterons during the 2023 TCS London Marathon. He will be raising funds for the bone and soft tissue cancer charity Sarcoma UK after the rare form of synovial sarcoma almost claimed his life last year and he says this will be his final marathon.

Lloyd has been ever-present over the past 21 years and has run in a variety of completely unsuitable (for athletics) costumes, most notably the 130lb deep sea diving suit he wore for six days to complete the 2002 marathon. Other famous outfits include St George pulling a dragon; Indiana Jones chased by a boulder; an Iron Giant robot (on stilts); the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, and he once crawled the course as Brian the Snail from the Magic Roundabout! As Lloyd says: "I hope I have managed to put a smile on some people's faces with these efforts."

Lloyd's cancer journey started in 1987 with a brush with leukemia, leading to a bone marrow transplant in 1989. In March 2021, he had a tumour removed from his throat, which was diagnosed as synovial sarcoma and was followed by six weeks of intensive radiotherapy which he describes as "gruelling".

Having had clear scans for a year the cancer returned and he underwent a lengthy operation in August 2022, followed by further emergency surgery two days later. Facial reconstruction has been necessary and just eight months later the self-styled 'Captain Scottlet and the Mysteruns' is ready to complete his final marathon challenge, describing his affinity with Captain Scarlet thus:

"Throughout the last couple of years, when the future has seemed uncertain, I remembered watching Captain Scarlet as a kid (I am old enough to have seen it when it was first broadcast in the 1960s). The fact he always manages to recover and come back for another mission struck a chord with me. Although I would never claim to be ‘indestructible’, having previously suffered from leukemia, a fractured neck, two hip replacements, a knee replacement, heart arrhythmia, and now the sarcoma, I think the term ‘reconstructible' would be appropriate!"

You can sponsor the reconstructible Captain Scottlet here.

Spectrum Is Green!

Image courtesy Lloyd Scott MBE via Donate