Lyn Baines – Our Group Co-ordinator

I was born and raised in Essex – yup, and I’ve heard ALL the jokes!

Had a brilliant childhood with one of the best dads in the world (aren’t they all?!). I started my career in the City of London in 1969, as all good Essex girls did then, until I met my husband, Billy, who was in the Household Cavalry at the time and whisked me off my feet – we met in April 1970 and were married in July 1970 – a bit of a whirlwind romance, and are still together and enjoying our lives in Spain.

I was ambitious and, although it was tough for women to hold senior positions in business then, I worked hard, learned well and in 1987 I became a founding member and shareholder of an information technology consultancy, taking the company from zero to a turnover of 5 million in six years, as their Sales and Marketing Director. I resigned as Director in 1993 when I discovered I had breast cancer, and underwent a lumpectomy and radiotherapy.

During this time, Billy had left the Army after 25 years’ exemplary service and started his own estate agency in Poole, Dorset, near to where we lived. In 1996 I started my own marketing company in Dorset and worked for large and small organisations, successfully raising their corporate profiles.

My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992 which was a terrible blow to everyone who knew him, especially me. But he was a survivor and he lived for another 9 years, and I am so grateful for that. He died on 2 June 2001 and I still choke up when I think of him today.

Just six months later, Billy had a heart attack – totally unexpected and a shock to us all. We had booked a relaxing holiday in the Maldives just two days later, so we had to cancel that. Thankfully, the paramedics were brilliant and the hospital excellent, so the damage to the heart was minimised.

It was like a wake-up call for both of us – my dad’s death, my breast cancer, Billy’s heart attack – life can be cut so short, despite all our plans; so we started thinking about our quality of life, rather than quantity. I am sure we’re not the only ones, but we were so wrapped up in “achieving” and providing for our retirement, we’d totally taken our eye off the big picture… life!

We decided it was time to slow down and enjoy life more… so we booked a trip to Spain to see if we would like to live there…

We found a beautiful log house in the hills towards Murcia, with fabulous views, and we had a baptism of fire in the Spanish language, gaining lots of Spanish friends along the way. We also gained some English and Scottish friends too, and we didn’t realise at the time how lucky we were to stumble across George and Liz Wheatley, who moved into a house near us in the summer of 2004. We became firm friends very quickly and we all had a great time, including several Christmases, Hogmanays and Burns’ Nights!

George was diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2006 and I helped him through all the specialist appointments, tests, and chemotherapy, translating for him. George was such a character and when he went for his first (and we didn’t know it at the time, but also his last) treatment on 8 December 2006, he joked about how he was “Captain Chemo” and he was going to beat this nasty disease. George died on 20 December 2006 in Arrixaca Hospital, Murcia.

The whole experience of “fighting” for George and the nightmare we experienced together because we didn’t know “the system” here in Spain, made me realise that there must be many other people in the same position and I decided to do something about it. After some research, I discovered the Cancer Support Group (MABS) and I liked what I saw – Murcia had nothing like that and I was determined to make sure that we did… the rest is history!