For the love of Pops and Grand. Lian’s London Marathon story

Published on: 10/04/2026

Lian Swaine (née Jones) is a massive hospice supporter who says she, “hates running but I’m getting used to it.”

It’s really funny when Lian describes her running challenges. On a recent long run her phone, which was tracking her mileage, ran out of battery and she still had a few miles to finish. She’d also run out of water and needed a top up.

So, as the shutters on the famous Green Hut outdoor café at Moreton Shore just closed as she approached, she knocked anyway to ask for a glass of water.

The owners graciously handed her a whole bottle for free. Lian said,

“I think they felt sorry for me. A slightly breathless, puffed out, red-faced, woman, gasping for water. They must have thought I was desperate.

I was! HaHa.”

As Lian starts to settle into telling us about her training journey it becomes clear that she doesn’t hate it quite as much as she may have last November when she started with some infrequent, small runs before getting into the groove after New Year.

She’s definitely getting there having completed 16 miles the day before we chat and looking forward to a last 20 miler just over two weeks before the London Marathon on Sunday, 26^th April.

Brilliant! Let the carb loading begin.

Lian’s running to raise funds for the hospice and becomes emotional when she tells us why,

Pops and Grand. Much loved and missed

“The hospice picked my dad, Keith, up, when the family had despaired because it had taken a long time to diagnose his illness.

Pops, as he was known to my children, Eva, Keaton and Carter and their cousins, Sonny, Stanley and Kai, was a lovely man. My hero.

He was always there for me growing up. I remember at school, I was about 10, when we’d been tasked with running twenty-four laps around the running track – I hate running – Dad bought me a present for every lap.

I was born in Saudi Arabia when Pops was working out there on the docks. When a little older we moved back to Greasby with my mum, brothers, Stephen and Paul, and afterwards my dad started a business called Figure Firm in Moreton which also expanded into West Kirby (everybody knew him).

When I grew up dad was still always there for me and the family, he absolutely doted on his grandchildren.

Pops liked a whiskey and he and I would go on tasting sessions. Because his cancer diagnosis was a B Cell Lymphoma around his brain he had lost his speech but at the hospice he could still smile and enjoy a tipple of his favourite whiskey and, in many ways, it was home from home.

He loved gardening and spending time in the hospice gardens was also a way he could enjoy some family time and normality.

The staff and volunteers were just wonderful, and they wrapped their arms around us. We were there, including my nephew Kai, when dad passed in April 2017. It was very sad but so peaceful.

Only four months later my husband Dave’s grandad, Bill, who, once his grandchildren were born, became forever known as Grand also passed away.

Lian, Eva, Keaton and Carter post-half marathon

Pops was a big Evertonian and Grand was a Red. I went with my dad, but Dave is LFC. My two eldest, Eva and Keaton are also Kopites, but I claimed Carter for the Blues. (Carter recently represented an Everton juniors team at their training ground, Finch Farm, with Pops ashes sewn into his goalkeeper gloves so he could walk out with him. Pops wouldn’t have missed that for the world). Wow!

Talking about and supporting football is something that unites the whole family (except on Derby day of course). HaHa!

Grand was Dave’s family’s patriarch, the head of the family, he’d been a bricklayer, a strong man, beloved by family and friends alike.

In his final weeks living with cancer, he was supported by the hospice’s Hospice at Home team, and they helped immensely to make those times much more bearable.

These hospice experiences convince me that we do have angels that live among us every day.”

Lian’s Skydive for the hospice

Lian’s now taken on a number of fundraisers for Wirral Hospice St John’s as her own personal thanks for the care and support of the hospice.

As well as an exhilarating skydive and a previous Liverpool half marathon in recent years, she’s also a hospice lottery member.

Daughter, Eva, took on a daring ‘shark dive’ at the Blue Planet Aquarium to help raise funds and Keaton’s youth team undertook a Santa Dash in New Brighton.

It’s a whole family effort. A recent ‘Stars in their Eyes’ family and friends fancy dress party with raffles and donations raised a really nice sum towards Lian’s London marathon effort. The grandchildren joined in too. Lian’s Gwen Stefani was joined by Lady GaGa, Snoop Dogg, at least two Michael Jackson’s and many others.

So now, fully prepared we know, Lian will go to London with Dave and the children supporting her, the very best wishes of everyone at the hospice and grateful thanks for another incredible £2,000+ and, with the words of her dad as inspiration,

“To the world you may be one person, but to this one person you are the world.”

If you’d like to support Lian in her London Marathon challenge please visit, https://www.justgiving.com/page/lian-london-marathon