Kind strangers pay for wedding for Glasgow mum, 26, diagnosed with aggressive brain tumour while pregnant

Bethany Wright, 26, and Cameron Murphy, 29, will tie the knot on Valentine's Day next year.

The pair met in 2022 and fell in love instantly, but Bethany was diagnosed with a grade three brain tumour in March 2024, while she was 34-weeks pregnant with their son Alfie, now one.

Bethany, a community nurse, from Glasgow, had an operation to remove 85 percent of the tumour followed by 33 sessions of radiotherapy.

She was having chemotherapy but has had to stop because of the side effects, reducing the time she has with Cameron and Alfie, she said.

Bethany's dearest wish is to marry Cameron before she's too sick, and a kind stranger, Shane Yerrell, 41, raised nearly £3,000 which the couple have used to book their wedding venue.

Shane, a support worker from Waltham Abbey in Essex, has been fundraising for strangers since 2011, and has raised money by walking the Great Wall of China and climbing Kilimanjaro.

He created a JustGiving page to raise the money for Bethany and a heartwarming video, which can be played above, shows the two meeting.

Bethany and Cameron, a manufacturing engineer, met in April 2022 and got engaged on September 7 2024.

Bethany has always struggled with headaches but in March 2024 the pain got so severe she went to the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.

She worried she might have pre-eclampsia - a pregnancy complication that causes high blood pressure.

A CT scan showed a mass on her brain, and an MRI confirmed it was a tumour.

She had to wait until after Alfie was born - two weeks later - to have an operation to remove it in August 2024.

Surgeons had to cut ear to ear, and Bethany had 74 staples in her head.

A biopsy confirmed that Bethany had a grade 3 astrocytoma, a fast-growing, aggressive tumour in the central nervous system.

She said she feels "robbed" of motherhood and said she has started making a memory box for Alfie - fearing she won't be around to see him grow up.

Stranger Shane contacted Bethany in February after seeing a friend post about her making the memory book on Facebook. He asked what she wanted most and she said 'to marry the love of her life: Cameron' before she was too sick. So he set up a fundraising page and used his social media profile to promote it.

After the fundraiser finished at £2,788, and Shane and Bethany met on March 20, Bethany and Cameron were able to book their wedding venue - Sherbrooke Castle Hotel, Glasgow.

The couple and their families are saving for the rest of the £20,000 they estimate the wedding will cost.

Shane said: "Fundraising is my passion. I just can't bear to see someone struggling. I've had my struggles, we all have, and it was the kindness of others that helped me, I just want to give that to others. Bethany's story really grabbed my attention: she's so young!"

Bethany said: "When they told me it was grade 3, I just didn't know how to process it, I was devastated. I had just had a newborn son, I was trying to work out the future. It was such a shock but my main thought was that I was not going to be able to be there for my son growing up which is heartbreaking.

"I had between three and 10 years to live, but I imagine this will be shorter now that I've had to stop the chemotherapy. I am 26, I am still young. I am not able to enjoy the usual activities that other new mums can, that is very hard. It makes me very upset to think that I won't be here with Alfie as long as I'd like so I try to block it out when I'm with him.

"We're so incredibly grateful for the money Shane has raised: we've been able to book our wedding because of it which means everything to us. Shane is such a kind person, it just shines out of him. Money aside, I feel like I've got a friend for life in him.

"We'll be eternally grateful for what he has done. The world needs more people like him. At first we just couldn't believe that someone who didn't know us would want to help us.

"We're so looking forward to it [the wedding]. I just need a big celebration like this. It's something positive to focus on to keep me going.”

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