Simon Gosling

I’m happily married to my childhood sweetheart, Margarita, who I met at 17 in 1986. We’ve been blessed with 3 beautiful children, Rosa (12), Lolita (9) and Pablo (7).

I started doing the Fireflies in 2007, after a friend of mine, Paul D’Auria died of cancer. The following year, I lost another friend, Barney Jeffery to cancer. This year, another friend of mine is suffering with this terrible disease.

I spend my working life enjoying making commercials at Framestore. Professor John Goldman and his team at The Catherine Lewis Centre in Hammersmith Hospital spend their’s dedicated to research into a cure and treatment for leukemia, which will lead to a cure for cancer. The Fireflies ride raises money for Leuka, a charity which helps fund this vital research, and that is why I do this ride.

I love riding my bike. It’s like meditation, it helps me to discover who I am and helps to relax me. I love the motion of cycling, the things you see whilst you ride, the memories you recall, which you thought you’d forgotten. It’s good for the mind, body and soul.

Other things I like are the way Stewart Copeland plays the hi-hats on Roxanne, the urgency of ‘My Generation’, by The Who, the way Carl Wilson sings the opening lines of ‘God Only Knows’, the taste of red wine in Southern Spain, the words of Khalil Gibran in The Prophet, the letters of St. Paul, the sound of the stream in Lourdes, Betty Blue, the spirit within The Fireflies,