Why I’m worried about the teenage cancer generation

As I sit here writing this, it’s just over one year ago since the first lockdown was imposed, without which I would have been touring with The Who. That included our annual concert for the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall.

Now, one of the UK’s premier calendar events has been cancelled for the second year running. It leaves a gaping £3 million deficit in the charity’s funding. Likewise, Teen Cancer America, the charity I founded with Pete Townshend in the United States, has lost $4 million in revenues we would have raised if our tours had not been cancelled.

It’s heart-breaking to see so many charities in trouble when they are needed the most. For teenagers and young adults with cancer, the pandemic is a curse upon a curse, leaving them vulnerable to life-threatening infections when their immune systems are already in crisis from debilitating treatments. If they have to stay in hospital, their loneliness and isolation is exacerbated by infection control regulations that will keep them from their loved ones, even in their final days should they not survive their cancer.