No, not the money-following journalist that took down Nixon. Bob Woodward, the UK version, was the founder of children’s cancer charity CLIC (Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood). He set the charity up in 1976 when his 8-year-old son, Robert, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. Robert died two years later but Bob continued the charity’s work: helping set up the first “Homes from Home” for the families of young cancer patients, and overseeing a spell of research into paediatric cancers that saw the survival rate rise from 30% in 1974 to around 80% today. He wasn’t too keen of old people dying of cancer either: diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, he kept it at bay before finally being reunited with Robert sixteen years later.
Bob Woodward
1934 – 20 January, 2019
Died aged 85 (unique pick)