Viral TikTok helps Dumfries man raise thousands in memory of his wife who died from a brain tumour

A widower from Dumfries has raised over £30,000 for a Brain Tumour charity after a TikTok video documenting his wife's battle with the illness went viral.

Alan Johnstone's video, documenting his wife Anneka's fight, has been 1.5 million times by people across the world.

Originally from Newton Stewart, Alan put the social media video together to explain why he is walking the Southern Upland Way for charity.

"To another love...": Alan Johnstone's TikTok which has been watched worldwide

His wife Anneka first started showing symptoms of being ill in May 2019, but died only six months later.

She was just 33 years-old when she died from a glioblastoma brain tumour.

Alan is now walking 214 miles across the Southern Upland Way with some friends, next month (June 2022) after several lockdowns and the pandemic got in the way of him previously doing it.

He says he has been overwhelmed by the response to the clip: "It was pretty unreal, I had 80 followers at the start and it was viewed 100,000 thousand times by the end of the day.

"Because I put the link up to sponsorship, I had hundreds of emails with an extra £1500 - £1600 in the pot."

The clip has helped raise £30,000 for The Brain Tumour Charity; ten times more than Alan's original target.

Although nervous about the physical and mental toll the walk will take on him, Alan wants to make all the people who have donated from around the world, and those closer to home, proud.

He says: "I'm a bit scared of failure, I'm a bit anxious about going public on TikTok and sharing with all my friends, I'm worried if I do get injured."

Having met Anneka as a teenager, the pair married in 2015 and had their daughter Sienna 3 years later.

Both of them worked at the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, with Alan describing her as the most "selfless and caring" person.

Alan said if Anneka was still around, she'd be with him every step of the way.