James Maxwell's letter

Launching Jo's Trust in September 1999, James Maxwell wrote:

"Writing the announcement of Jo's death back in May, 1999 my pen paused over the "donations to..." sentence. Donations to what? A cancer charity was an obvious choice, but during the four years of Jo's illness our experiences of the major cancer charities, and some of the specialist ones, had been neither helpful nor informative.

We knew virtually nothing about cervical cancer and experienced frustration at the lack of information available to give us any perspective on what Jo was facing. In 1995, when the cancer was first diagnosed the web was still in its infancy and many of the statistics available then were vague and varied according to who we spoke to.

There was nowhere to go for facts or help. Hence, Jo's Trust.

Jo's hope was that everyone one day would have access to reliable information as well as receive support at every stage of pre-cancer and cancer of the cervix, including 'follow up' having survived the disease.

My aim in establishing Jo’s Trust was to realise this hope and in doing so that it will make a real difference to the lives of women and their families affected by pre-cancer and cervical cancer.

It is my hope that by providing the best possible online services Jo's Trust will become the global portal for cervical cancer and contribute to a significant drop in the incidence of this disease worldwide.

Thank you for all your support"

Find out more about our history >

James Maxwell
Founder Jo's Trust
06/06/1957 - 18/06/2003