Ten days ago, the lung cancer community lost one of its shining lights. Ever since her diagnosis in 2021, Jules Fielder made the decision to do everything she could to change the face of lung cancer and help others get diagnosed far quicker – and hopefully much earlier – than she did.
Jules started working as a charity advocate in 2022 when she joined our awareness campaign – On the Right Path – for lung cancer awareness month.
We were filming in a house in London. Jules was travelling from her home in Hastings with a friend, but faced significant train disruption and lengthy delays. It would have been entirely understandable to rearrange. But nothing was going to stop her. The cause was too important, and she had a story to share.
That determination — calm, focused and utterly unwavering — has defined everything Jules did since – for our charity, other charities and the entire lung cancer community.
Charity advocates never fail to amaze us. Time and time again, we meet and talk to people who, even after receiving the most devastating news imaginable, choose to set aside their own fear and uncertainty to help others. They speak out so that future generations might have better outcomes than they will.
No one embodied this selflessness more than Jules. She would relive her story again and again – to anyone who would listen. And never for her own celebrity. Jules simply wanted to make a difference for those who followed.
Changing the face of lung cancer
For too long, lung cancer has been burdened by stigma and shaped by outdated assumptions. Many still believe it affects only older men, or only those with a history of smoking, or who worked around asbestos.
Jules has made it her personal mission to challenge these misconceptions and change the face of lung cancer. Through her honesty, warmth and courage, her experience from just 37 years old helped people see the reality beyond the stereotype.
When Jules received the heartbreaking news last year that her cancer had progressed, her response was not to retreat, but to double down. Where many would understandably retreat inward, Jules turned outward.
#BreakTheSilence
It was back in October 2025 that Jules announced she wanted to start a social media movement. Together, we devised the #BreakTheSilence campaign and off Jules went. Because that was the thing with Jules; ideas never just remained conversations. They became action.
Her campaign quickly gained national traction. It caught the attention of the Health Secretary and led to a meeting to discuss change at the highest level. She also secured a national television appearance on Good Morning Britain, using the platform not for personal sympathy, but to demand better awareness and earlier diagnosis for others.
Yet even this was not enough. Jules had a clear, practical objective: to see symptom awareness materials placed alongside cough medicines in pharmacies and supermarkets — reaching people at the very moment they might be questioning a persistent cough.
A lasting legacy
On Monday 9th February, Jules’s vision became reality, with materials appearing in Boots stores across the UK. What may appear a simple intervention is, in truth, transformative. Lung cancer has too often been pushed into the shadows. It is the cancer people feel uncomfortable discussing. That silence leads to poor symptom awareness and, too often, late diagnosis when treatment options are limited, and hope of curative treatment destroyed.
By placing lung cancer information in everyday retail settings, Jules helped normalise the conversation. She ensured that people are prompted to act sooner.
Earlier diagnosis saves lives and Jules’s campaign will, without doubt, lead to more people seeking help at a stage when their cancer is treatable.
This is her legacy.
An extraordinary woman
Receiving an incurable lung cancer diagnosis is devastating. But to hear those words as a young mother is unimaginable.
To know that you won’t see your child grow up; being denied the chance to grow old with your partner — and yet Jules remained positive, determined and outward-looking right to the end.
Jules turned her personal tragedy into public good. She shifted narratives, influenced national conversation, and drove tangible change that will benefit countless families she will never meet.
Thanks to her courage and leadership, Jules’s impact reaches far beyond awareness; it reaches into policy, into practice, and into people’s lives.
As a charity, we are honoured to have met her and stood shoulder to shoulder with her in a mission. And we will do everything we can to continue her legacy.
Thank you Jules for everything you did – and mostly, for just being you.
TTFN x