Keep us beating - stories from the red bench

The Devolved Nations’ ‘Keep us beating’ campaign has has released a third set of stories about people living with heart conditions.

In the final wave of the campaign – shared last month – our BHF red bench went on the road to highlight impactful stories across the 3 nations.

A singing farmer, a comedian and business leaders took centre stage on this occasion.

Farmer and Britain’s Got Talent winner shares his story

Hugh Thomas, 75, lives on a farm on the border of Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, Wales, and shares the message that there is life after major heart surgery. Three years after a triple heart bypass, he joined the Hawkstone Farmers Choir and went on to win Britain’s Got Talent in May. He’s using his voice to encourage others, especially the farming community, to get checked.

A man sit on red bench in front of a corn field

“It would be great if they found a cure for this, if not for me then for others.”

In Scotland, popular stand-up comic Rosco McClelland, who has just finished performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, speaks candidly on our red bench about long QT syndrome, a heart condition diagnosed when he was a child.

Long QT syndrome is an inherited condition which affects the way your heart beats and the way the electricity travels through the heart.

Rosco has learned to manage his condition and has modified his life, for example avoiding over exertion, which could cause him to collapse.

“It would be great if they found a cure for this, if not for me then for others,” said Rosco.

A man sits on red bench with an painted mural of a child in a hat behind him

Manufacturing NI Chief Executive Stephen Kelly and former Tourism NI Chief Executive John McGrillen sat on the bench at Titanic Belfast to share their individual experiences.

“I thought I was indestructible"

Two men sit either side of a red bench with a third man leaning over the bench behind them

Stephen, 54, from Derry-Londonderry, had believed he was “indestructible” before suffering a heart attack in March 2026 while on a short break in Alicante with his wife Carol to celebrate their NI silver wedding anniversary.

John, 64, who lives in Ballynahinch, had spent a decade leading Tourism NI and was preparing for retirement when tests showed he was at high risk of a heart attack and needed open-heart surgery.

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