'She didn't have long, but she improved a lot of lives'

"When Vicky was ill, she was more concerned with our feelings than she was with herself," Ben Halstead says, smiling as he talks about his sister.

"In the hospice, when the doctor came and spoke to us and said, have you got any questions? She said, 'just one - what support is available for my family?'"

For Ben this memory "really sums up the type of person" Victoria Schofield was.

Vicky, or Vic to some, was a speech and language therapist living in Apperley Bridge in Bradford, working between Nottingham Hospitals and her private practice.

However, in 2025, aged just 32, she died shortly after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer - but her only thought until the end was about how to help others, Ben says.

To carry on her legacy, friends and family are setting up a foundation to support those with terminal illnesses and their loved ones, as well as people who work in palliative care.

"It was actually Vic's idea," her husband Jack Schofield explains.

"While there's probably hundreds of people inspired to help others on behalf of Vic, the charity itself was actually directly from her in those last few weeks."

Vic was cared by staff at St Gemma's Hospice, in Leeds, and was able to spend quality time with her many visitors, often in the garden as she loved the outdoors.

"I think we look back [and] even though they were some of the toughest times of our life, they were some of the most special," Ben says.

Her family helped cover the couple's mortgage payments, so that Jack could take time off from his sports photography business to be by his wife's side.

Having time for "big conversations" was difficult but necessary, Jack explains.

"It's so easy to be doom and gloom - of course, your world's falling apart. Everyone has a whole range of emotions through that.

"We were quite fortunate that we were guided by Vic and good people."

Before she died, Vic raised over £70,000 for St Gemma's and Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust so the foundation would be "building on what Vic did so effortlessly," he adds.

A decision with the Charity Commission to set up the foundation is expected later this year, but the family envisages it as a way to provide relief, such as mortgage break grants.

In the meantime, fundraising efforts are still ongoing. Last month a group tackled a 200 km (124 miles) cycle ride, starting at the tree planted in her memory in Nottingham.

They also raised money for a memorial bench along the canal near her home in Apperley Bridge, a regular running route for her and friend Hayley Gibson.

"She loved being active, so to see people raising money and being active for her charity, she would absolutely love it," she says.

"There was something very special about Vic and how she could touch different people from all walks of life.

"Her empathy, her kindness, her sense of humour, her sense of fun. You don't find all of those qualities very often in one person."

If the money raised helps two people or 2,000, "the scale of it doesn't matter", Jack says, as long as it supports people caring for someone with a life-limiting illness.

"Vic always said, don't sweat the small stuff, it doesn't matter in the long run. She didn't have long, but she certainly improved a lot of lives.

"So we just want to continue trying to do that in some small way, if we can."

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