FEBRUARY 4 was World Cancer Day when people across the globe united to raise awareness and play their part in reducing the impact of the disease.

The initiative is led by the Union for International Cancer Control.

Its aim is to improve education and press for more government action, to create a world where millions of preventable cancer deaths are saved and access to life-saving cancer treatment and care is available for all.

Hundreds of activities and events take place, bringing communities together.

And as our search through the photographic archives shows, it can be any day of the year – not just February 4 – when the generous people of Cumbria do their bit to raise awareness and funds to help cancer charities.

One of the main messages people are being told time after time is that the best thing to beat cancer is early diagnosis.

It is such an important message yet many ignore it, either because they do not recognise the symptoms or because being diagnosed makes it real and it is a feat they are not ready to face.

But thanks to research and the huge strides being made in medicine, cancer is not the automatic death sentence it once was.

It is now estimated that 60 per cent of people with cancer will survive it.

A higher percentage of those who survive are women.

One of the reasons for this is the same reason that so many campaigns are aimed at men who are traditionally less apt to talk about symptoms or go to the doctor.

The one thing these pages tell us is something we have commented on so many times – the willingness of people to do anything from cycling to flying to raise money for the research that will eventually beat cancer once and for all.

These are just nine random photographs from the last 22 years giving a snapshot of all the hard work by those who are helping to make vital research possible.

And, of course, we had to mention Gary McKee whose 365 days of marathon runs was just some of what he has done for cancer research.