Christmas Pudding Race to Beat Cancer

Colourful lights shine bright, illuminating the city at night time, Christmas trees are set up and cheerful carols can be heard in the streets, transmitting a sense of joy and calm.

A similar atmosphere, cheerful and festive, lingered at Covent Garden in London. About 400 people gathered together in the square around the magnificent Christmas tree, where an obstacle course called “The Great Christmas Pudding Race” had been set up to support the research against cancer.

This event, organised by Cancer Research Aid Committee (CRAC), has been running for the last 37 years, and it is held every first Saturday of December.

“It started the same year as the Apple Market. It basically is a fancy dress obstacles relay, so there are a lot of obstacles that they do in team of six, and each team gets sponsored, which is how we raised money,” said Cara Melzack, the 30-year-old daughter of the race creator.

Cara Melzack has been volunteering for CRAC for several years now. When she was younger she used to run in the race, later she joined the committee of the organisation.

The participants of each team were all wearing themed matched costumes. During the race, they had to run through the obstacles, holding a Christmas pudding in their hands, and all of this while being sprayed with foam by some volunteers.

The race was an idea developed by Steven Melzack, with the help of David Lee, after his cousin sadly died at the young age of 18 because of a brain tumour. Since her death, he tried to come up with a brilliant plan to raise money to donate to the charity Cancer Research UK.

In the past, they have collected between £15,000 and £25,000. This year their goal was to reach £30,000. During the event volunteers walked among the public, and donations could be made even through text messages.

“After a while, we thought about the Christmas Pudding Race. Originally, it was meant to be only a run around Covent Garden, since then we have been adding new features to attract more people, and make the event more entertaining and enjoyable,” said Melzack, who, after 40 years, is still running CRAC.

The way the event was set up also caught the attention of many people who were just walking by, and decided to stay for the whole race.

This was the case of Therese Littmen, 49, a tourist from Sweden, who was at Covent Garden that morning to do some Christmas shopping. When she saw all the people dressed up in the costumes she decided to postpone the shopping, because in her opinion this was “a fun thing to watch, and it creates a wonderful Christmas atmosphere”.

Although around 86 people participated in the race, six lovely teenage girls, dressed in shining green elves’ costumes, stood out in the crowd. They were sponsored by the Women Football Society, of which they are all members, and they have been taking part in the race for the last four years.

Niamh Mullan, 20, an Irish girl who is currently studying management marketing in London, said that they have always been wanting to raise money for cancer research, and in the last year alone they managed to collect £2,000.

However, this year they were motivated to raise even more, after the mum of the chair secretary from their society died shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer, last February.

There were also many spectators, who knew about the event from websites and social media, and even if they did not join the race, they wanted to support the cancer research, and enjoy the live bands, Chasing Deer and Lewisham, and Greenwich NHS Trust Choir, who performed during the breaks.

Beate Steinz, 53, a tourist from Germany, was really excited about the event, she comes to London every year always around Christmas time because she is “in love with this city”.

“I do volunteering back home, I started after my grandfather died of stomach cancer, and when I heard about the Pudding Race I was really curious about it and I wanted to see it,” said Steinz.

Many of the participants were racing because either a family member or a close friend was personally affected by cancer.

“This is not my first year doing this race, but it is the most important one. Only a couple of months ago, my cousin died of breast cancer, so I tried to raise money with my family to commemorate her,” said Chloe Hicks, 19, student at Royal Holloway, University of London, who was particularly enthusiastic and touched by the event.

Once the race was over, Alicia Jein, 19, student of psychology and a member of the elves team, said: “Like every year we had a lot fun, we did not even get close to win the race, but I guess it is fine because winning is not the reason why we are here today.

“It always amazes me how many people come together, and dressed up, all to support the same cause.”