A 100-Mile Tribute to Aaron: Raising Awareness for Meningitis B

Anthony Mills stood outside Anfield with a strange feeling for a grieving father: something close to peace.

Nine months after losing his 18-year-old son Aaron to meningitis B, the man from Kidderminster believes he has finally helped give his boy the legacy his life deserved.

That legacy has been carried, quite literally, over more than 100 miles of English roads.

A 100-Mile Tribute

Family friend Shaun McEntee set off from Kidderminster Harriers’ Aggborough Stadium and ran all the way to Liverpool’s Anfield, a five-day, 100-plus-mile effort with one clear purpose – to shout about a disease that too often slips under the radar.

He didn’t run alone. In his pocket, a small canister of Aaron’s ashes. In his mind, the promise that this would mean something.

“Thursday and Friday were really tough,” McEntee admitted after finishing outside Anfield. The weather turned, the fatigue bit hard, and the road seemed to stretch forever. “It was probably the lowest I had been. The weather was against us and I was already exhausted and I knew I had lots to go.”

But he kept going. Every step framed by the weight of that canister.

By the time he reached Liverpool, he was shattered. “I'm exhausted, so tired, but it's been so worth it,” he said. “I feel like we've actually got the message across.”

A Father’s Mission

While McEntee pounded the miles, Mills took on a different role. He became the storyteller.

The pair stopped at the University of Wolverhampton, Harper Adams University in Shropshire, Reaseheath College & University Centre in Nantwich and the University of Chester. At each place, Mills stood in front of students and told them about MenB – the brutal bacterial infection that took Aaron’s life so suddenly in January.

He told BBC Hereford & Worcester that most of the young people they met had no idea what meningitis B was, let alone that there was a vaccine.

That ignorance is at the heart of his anger and his drive. Babies have been routinely vaccinated against MenB for more than a decade, but Aaron’s age group missed out. A gap in the system. A generation left unprotected.

Mills has thrown himself into changing that. Friends and family have joined him in raising awareness, pushing the message that the vaccine is there – and that it matters. He’s proud of what they’ve done, but he’s not pretending the job is finished. There is, as he puts it, “still work to be done”.

Moments That Might Save a Life

On the road to Liverpool, that work started to feel real.

McEntee recalls a handful of conversations that cut through the pain in his legs. “There were a couple of moments that in my head could have saved a couple of lives,” he said. Students told them, on the spot, they would go and get the vaccine because of what they’d just heard.

For Mills, those moments are everything. They turn grief into purpose.

“The whole experience was just amazing,” he said. “I feel a bit guilty because I enjoyed every single minute of it.”

The guilt sits alongside a fierce pride – in his son, and in the people who have rallied around Aaron’s name.

“I owe Shaun a lot, he's done all this in Aaron's memory and it's been phenomenal,” Mills said. “Aaron was an incredible person and to just let him go like that... it just felt so wrong.

“I've really tried to get his legacy over the last nine months to what it should be because his potential was unlimited.”

Finding Peace in a Name Remembered

Now, after days on the road, hours in front of students, and one emotional finish at Anfield, something inside him has shifted.

“I'm kind of at peace,” he said. “A lot of people know Aaron's name, they know Aaron's story, and it's really helped me a lot.

“I feel like I can move forward a bit... I've healed a lot of wounds from it and it was incredible, the whole thing.”

The pain of losing an 18-year-old son will never disappear. But as long as young people keep hearing Aaron’s story – and acting on it – his legacy will keep running far beyond the finish line at Anfield.