Rob Burrow: Leeds photography exhibition explores MND

A photography exhibition exploring the impact of motor neurone disease (MND) on seven people, including rugby league legend Rob Burrow, has opened.

Called "7 Stories of Motor Neurone Disease", it features portraits of those wanting to tell their stories, including Mr Burrow and wife Lindsey.

It aims is to raise awareness and funds for Leeds Hospitals Charity's appeal to build the Rob Burrow Centre for MND.

The show opened at Leeds railway station and will tour across the city.

The number seven is significant as it was Mr Burrow's rugby league shirt number for Leeds Rhinos, who he played for over a 16-year period.

The 40-year-old was diagnosed with MND in December 2019 and can no longer walk or talk, communicating through a keyboard controlled by his eyes.

MND is a life-shortening disease which affects the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, and has no cure.

Mr Burrow said: "The new centre will have a lasting legacy for people diagnosed today, and in years to come. It will be a haven for patients and their families - a peaceful environment with the best possible care, helping them to live in the now.

"I am still defying the odds, with a smile on my face. I won't give up until my last breath.

"I have too many reasons to live."

Esther Wakeman, chief executive of Leeds Hospitals Charity, said: "We are just under half way to our target to build the new Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease; the hope is this exhibition inspires people to help get us to the finishing line."

Many of those featured in the exhibition have signed up to the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon next May, also to help raise funds for the project.

The new centre will be run by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and would be the first of its kind in Europe.

Others to feature in the exhibition include Katie Dowson, 39, from Ilkley, a digital director for the NHS who has raised more than £10,000 for charity after her father Warren died of MND in 2018.

She said her father was a proud Yorkshireman who was a lifelong Leeds Rhinos fan - with some of his ashes scattered at the team's Headingley Stadium.

Ms Dowson added:"Throughout my life, dad was always doing something physical, a real DIY dad - this made his MND diagnosis seem even more cruel because the physical deterioration stopped him doing the things he really loved."

John Hamlin, 53, also pictured, lost his wife Susie to MND when she was 45, in April 2018.

A consultant gastroenterologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, he ran 165 miles in eight days from Melrose rugby club in Scotland - the home club of Doddie Weir, also diagnosed with MND - to Headingley.

He said: "Rob Burrow sent me a message of thanks on my challenge. It was so inspiring. Any pain I had melted away."

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