A gift in memory of Jenn

Jenn Hill, 38, died in October after receiving the devastating news in February 2014 that she had stage four lung cancer.

But despite her agonising diagnosis, Jenn, who was deputy editor of Todmorden-based Singletrack magazine, continued to work and live life to the full while battling the disease.

While she was ill, Jenn’s colleagues vowed to raise as much money as they could for two cancer charities of Jenn’s choosing - Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The money was raised in a number of ways - donations from the sale of print and digital subscriptions, donations from the sale of copies of the magazine, plus donations from the sale of the magazine’s ‘Issue 100’ prints and mugs and an auction of the original painting by artist Jo Burt used on the ‘Issue 100’ cover.

And it’s hoped the £16,000 raised will now fund future research and help save the lives of those diagnosed with cancer.

Chipps Chippendale, editor of Singletrack, said: “Jenn was many people in one. A great writer and photographer, a great athlete and racer and a great ambassador for cycling.

“She had a huge love of life, people and the outdoors, yet at the same time she was a very private person and a stickler for deadlines and punctuation. She’s going to be impossible to replace, as not many people have all those same great qualities in a single body - so we are not going to try.

“It feels really nice that we have managed to raise so much money.”

Her husband Tom added: “She was an incredibly talented and thoughtful writer. Whether it was tales of adventure or a tyre review, she engaged peer-to-peer and told it how it was in a style that was simply Jenn.

“I’ve never read anyone who could write about bikes like Jenn wrote about bikes. Or not about bikes, about how riding bikes makes you feel, because that is what really matters - not the collection of tubes and wheels and sprockets and a chain.

“She could detail every element of the most everyday rides, find a new angle on it, eloquently describe the sensory overload it provided.

“Terminal cancer did what it does and killed her - it wasn’t what her life was about. There were innumerable moments during that time that were ‘Jenn’ through and through.

“Jenn ran the Saunders Mountain Marathon twice after being diagnosed. Once with me, and once with her brother. What she had lost in speed and fitness, she made up for in determination and an unwillingness to share map reading duties. Frustratingly, as always, her navigation turned out to be right. Jenn was always right.

“Finally, when we made the heartbreaking decision to move to St Gemma’s Hospice, both exhausted and scared, things felt that little bit better when we could fling open the patio doors to her room and push her around the garden in a wheelchair. She was able to look up and see sky again, and feel the wind against her cheeks.

“She kept caring, even when she was ill. When, finally she was no longer able to turn a pedal, she diverted her voracious need to do something into knitting and sewing - gifts for friends, a duvet for our Adventure Van, a purchase that we made immediately after Jenn was diagnosed and shuttled us off on trips at every opportunity over the intervening months.

“She gave so, so much more than she ever took. In fact, she gave a lifetime’s worth.”