A Liverpool woman is set to walk five marathons in five days in memory of her incredible mum

A Liverpool woman is preparing to take on five marathons in five days in memory of her mum.

Marketing executive Ciara Bolton will walk 130 miles from Hull to Liverpool in July to raise awareness of oesophageal cancer, from which her mum, Claire, died in November last year, and to raise vital funds for Cancer Research UK.

Ciara, 30, who’ll be completing the challenge with close friends Caroline and Isobel, knows it’s going to be tough.

But she says:

“Every step I take will be raising awareness of a horrendous cancer and raising money that can be used to beat it so other families don’t have to go through what we have.”

Claire Bolton was 68 when she died in 2025, just 64 days after being diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer.

A retired headteacher, she’d dedicated more than 30 years to education in Liverpool, as well as spending a decade teaching at an international school in Greece.

Ciara says:

“Mum was known for her energy, her humour and selflessness. She built lifelong friendships across the UK and internationally throughout her career and we’ve had messages saying how amazing she was from people she taught 30 years ago, so her kindness has travelled through decades. It’s incredible the effect she had.”

Claire, from Hale, was diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer in September. And Ciara remembers her symptoms showing around June or July.

She commented:

“Mum was a great cook and she’d made this massive feast for everyone. She was eating at the table before she said she had to go and lie down, because she was getting a pain and felt she couldn’t swallow.

“Mum thought it might be a hiatus hernia which was quite common for someone who’d suffered for quite a lot of their life with heartburn like she had, but as she lay down she was coughing and making a gagging noise. At the time I thought it was nothing – I’m always an optimistic person. Mum went straight to the doctors – because she didn’t ignore anything – and was referred for a consultation with suspected oesophageal or stomach cancer. She didn’t tell me that because she didn’t want to scare me.”

It was only when Claire went for the first endoscopy that Ciara was aware that things might be serious.

She added:

“I went in in the morning and mum looked scared and sad and it was the first time I’d seen her look that way, but I told her it was going to be fine and gave her a hug and a kiss and told her to let me know as soon as she heard anything. When I called her later she said they’d found something but she’d tell me when I got home. So I went home straight away.”

Medics had seen a mass which they thought was cancer: “And mum was never the same again.”

Oesophageal cancer is often diagnosed late as symptoms typically appear only once it has already spread, with the average time from a stage 4 diagnosis to death around 103 days.

By the time hers was confirmed, Claire had a ‘nasty’ tumour that was virtually blocking her oesophagus.

She underwent two rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy but she reacted badly to treatment and decided not to carry on, most likely because it wasn’t going to change the outcome.

Ciara says:

“My mum was the best and most selfless person I’ve ever known. She was the person everyone went to, whether they needed advice, a laugh, or just someone to listen. Since she died, we’ve had messages from people all over the world whose lives she’d touched, which says everything about who she was. She was incredibly strong, even when she was unwell, and she’s the reason I’m doing this challenge.

“It still doesn’t feel real that she’s gone, but I wanted to do something that reflects the kind of
person she was – someone who always put other people first. She was only diagnosed a few months before we lost her, and everything changed so quickly.

Oesophageal cancer is one of the hardest cancers because it’s often found too late, and if this walk helps raise awareness, or helps fund research that gives other families more time, then that feels really important to me.”

Ciara, who works at Carpenters Group in Liverpool, will be documenting her training and fundraising journey on social media, before sharing updates throughout the five-day walk from July 23-27.

She added:

“I can’t begin to tell you how devastated I still am, but this feels like something I have to do. In some ways it’s a distraction and a focus for my grief. When mum was ill, there were no answers and there was nothing we could do except watch her be in pain.

“But you see all the time about developments in cancer research and new tests, and I’m doing this so I can raise awareness and funds for that research. It is going to be tough, but it needs to feel like a challenge.”

Ciara and her two friends have already been pledged more than £7,000, but she would like to reach £10,000.

“We’ve had so much support, and I’m just really grateful to everyone who’s donated or shared our story. Every single bit of support makes a difference. My mum would be asking me to please be careful, and I’d have to call her every five minutes to let her know I was okay, but she would be beyond proud of me doing it.

“That we’re over £7,000 already is a wonderful testimony to my mum and who she was, but if we get to £10,000 I’ll be over the moon.”

You can find out more and donate to In Memory of Claire here.

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