A ZEST FOR LIFE

The inspirational story of David Greaves whose life was tragically cut short by illness. Mike Smith reports

At the age of 30, David Greaves was enjoying the happiest time of his life: he had met Philippa, the love of his life; he was obtaining a great deal of satisfaction from his job working on London’s cycling strategy; he was a marathon runner and an Ironman Triathlete; he loved travelling the world and, in the words of his mother, Sarah, he had ‘a zest for life that was infectious’.

David was born in the Yorkshire town of Pontefract, but moved at a young age to the High Peak village of Bamford, where his parents became founder members of a Quaker community. As his mother recalls, David ‘enjoyed an active, outdoor, slightly feral lifestyle as a youngster.’ He was educated at Hope Valley College and went on to be awarded a First in History at Newcastle University, followed by an MA at Sheffield University. After a spell of teaching English as a foreign language in Spain, David moved to London, where he met Philippa.

At the time of his 30th birthday, in May 2015, David was enjoying a safari holiday with his family in Tanzania when he realized that he was having difficulty in holding his camera properly. This was the latest in a series of worrying physical symptoms that had been developing during the previous few months, including extreme fatigue and general weakness which, as a super-fit young man, he had never experienced before. On his return to the UK, David underwent various tests before being diagnosed in June 2015 with Motor Neurone Disease, a cruel degenerative condition that kills more than one-third of the people suffering from it within a year of detection, with more than half of those diagnosed dying within two years. As of yet, there is no effective treatment or cure.