This month we’re taking a fresh approach to the Shipping Forecast series with an exploration of the book Moderate Becoming Good Later.
At the age of seven, Toby Carr was told he would not reach 30. In the harsh lottery of life, he and his brother were both born with a rare genetic disorder called Fanconi Anaemia that affects one in two million people, causing bone marrow failure in children and a predisposition to gynaecological, head and neck cancer in adults.
Toby’s book Moderate Becoming Good Later, Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast starts with him aged 35, sitting at his brother Marcus’ deathbed. Already five years beyond his own life expectancy, the tragic event slams home what Toby already knows well; he’s living on borrowed time.
The medical advice given to him from childhood was to wrap himself up in self-administered cotton wool, avoiding the outdoors