Founders and life presidents

Founder member and Chairman of Teenage Cancer Trust until June 2010, Dr Adrian Whiteson OBE, together with his wife Myrna, was honoured by the board of Trustees and became an Honorary Life President of the charity.

As a former Trustee for Teenage Cancer Trust, Adrian’s main responsibilities were fundraising and awareness. Together with Roger Daltrey of The Who, he was responsible for the annual concerts held at the Royal Albert Hall. He has also run marathons for Teenage Cancer Trust and trekked with his wife, Myrna, throughout the world to raise funds. He was highly active in recruiting supporters and sponsors for the charity from major industries and organisations.

Adrian has been in private medical practice in London’s West End since 1971 and is responsible for the health and wellbeing of the directors and employees of a number of major public companies. He has been a Medical Adviser to a number of Life Insurance companies and has addressed various international fora on medical insurance issues. In 1962 he joined the British Boxing Board of Control as a Medical Adviser and became their Chief Medical Officer in 1970, soon after becoming Chairman of the Medical Committee of the World Boxing Council and the European Boxing Union. He is well known for his contributions to the media on the medical aspects of contact sports and on other medical issues.

He was a member of the Government Review Body for Sport for People with Disabilities and in 1990 became President of the British Paralympic Association. In 2004, due to work pressures he stepped down and is now Honorary Vice President. In 1992 he was awarded an OBE for services to sport and charity.

Myrna Whiteson has always worked with young people. Initially a teacher and school counsellor, for 30 years she was a magistrate in inner London and spent much of that time dealing with young offenders and with Family Courts. She served as Chairman of West Central Division of Inner London Courts. As well as fundraising for the charity, Myrna has played a pivotal role in developing Teenage Cancer Trust units throughout the UK.

She has done much to promote awareness of the needs of young people with cancer in the UK and abroad. She supports the Teenage Cancer Trust Multidisciplinary Forum and contributes to the organisation of Find Your Sense of Tumour, a Teenage Cancer Trust sponsored conference for young cancer patients. Myrna has been a driving force in developing Teenage Cancer Trust’s International Conference on Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Medicine. She has contributed to ‘The Teenage Cancer Trust - advocating a model for teenage cancer services’ to the European Journal of Cancer and to other publications, and addresses many audiences both within the UK and abroad, about the issues surrounding cancer and young people.

Myrna has also highlighted the needs of young cancer patients with MPs, government bodies, radio and television, and has represented teenagers with cancer on the Government Task Force - Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS. She has also contributed to the charity by participating in 12 treks worldwide. In 2002 she was awarded an MBE for services to Teenage Cancer Trust.