In memory of his brother

Alan Hoare has taken up running for the first time in more than 20 years to honour Kevin Hoare after his older brother's death in Spain.

The first anniversary of Kevin's death at the age of 39 will occur just before the May 20 race.

Alan said it would be an emotional time. He has had a T-shirt printed with a photograph of Kevin on the back along with the words 'In memory of Kev'.

He has raised several hundred pounds of sponsorship so far in aid of the CLIC Sargent children's charity for its work with children who have cancer, including leukaemia, and their relatives.

His family decided to support the charity at Kevin's funeral last summer after requests from his friends to be able to support a good cause. The collection at the funeral raised 500.

Alan has already exceeded that amount in sponsorhip for his run. He said: 'The anniversary of Kevin's death is going to be very hard. It's not something I am looking forward to. It was difficult at Christmas without him and during our other family anniversaries.

'That's why I wanted to do the run to remember him, more than anything.

'A lot of Kevin's friends were asking if we were going to do anything for him on the anniversary of his death and that got me thinking about the run.'

Alan (38), of Moorhen Way, last ran seriously when he was at school. But he rediscovered his athletic ability at the start of this year when he began training for the race.

An injury interrupted his schedule but he was determined to overcome the temporary setback to return to pounding the roads in preparation for the big day.

He managed to complete a run of six miles towards the end of April to put him well on course to conquer the 10k route along the seafront.

Alan's sponsorship forms are available at Plumbase, in Fairlands, where he has worked as a sales assistant on the trade counter for 22 years.

He can be contacted at work on 01243 864701 or on his [email protected] e-mail address. It was around 4.45am on May 11, 2006, that Kevin was last seen alive in the Spanish gay resort of Stiges.

He had gone on holiday there and had been to dinner with two friends at their apartment before the three of them went to a club together.

Kevin decided to stay on after the other two but simply disappeared. It was almost three weeks before his body was found in his apartment.

His cause of death was stated at the time as a heart attack but Alan said getting official information from the Spanish authorities had been very frustrating in the past year.

'We are still dealing with them after all this time. No one will tell us officially the main cause of Kevin's death. That has not helped our situation,' he added.