When Daniel Forrester first met Caroline Sarpong on a dating app in January 2023, he had no idea their love story would change his life – or that it would end with a promise taking him on a 5,000-mile walk from London to Ghana.
After losing his fiancée to cancer, the 48-year-old from Chelmsford is preparing to set off on a global journey with her ashes in a bid to ‘walk her back home’, all while raising much-needed funds for St Francis Hospice – where Caroline spent her final moments.
Daniel has been documenting his preparations for the mammoth trip on TikTok and has been collecting donations for equipment needed to take Caroline home one final time through his GoFundMe channel.
But speaking to the Daily Mail, Daniel rewound all the way to the beginning, explaining how he came to find himself travelling across the globe on foot for the woman he loves.
‘I met Caroline on a dating app,’ Daniel said. ‘I swiped right, she swiped on me, and we started chatting straight away. Within two days she told me she was a widow – and a cancer survivor.’
Caroline’s story stunned him. In March 2021, she had been rushed to hospital with excruciating stomach pain.
Her bowel had ruptured, and surgeons told her that if she’d arrived even a minute later, she would have died.
The diagnosis was devastating – colorectal cancer that had spread to her liver. Doctors gave her just six months to live.
When Daniel Forrester first met Caroline Sarpong on a dating app in January 2023, he had no idea their love story would change his life
After losing his fiancee to cancer, the 48-year-old from Chelmsford is preparing to set off on a global journey with her ashes in a bid to ‘walk her back home’
When she told Daniel her story, Caroline worried he might run. But instead, her courage only drew him closer. ‘When she told me everything, I was blown away,’ he says. ‘She asked, “I hope it doesn’t put you off me?” ‘I told her, “Far from it”.’
Their first date in Liverpool Street led to drinks in Shoreditch, and soon the couple were inseparable.
After six months of dating and weekend getaways, Daniel knew he’d met someone extraordinary. ‘We were really hitting it off,’ Daniel says.
But seven months in, Caroline’s regular check-ups revealed that remnants of the cancer had appeared in her lungs.
Doctors assured her it was no cause for concern – until, in July 2023, they told her the disease had worsened.
‘She was told she needed a revolutionary chemotherapy treatment from the States,’ says Daniel.
The treatment was brutal. ‘It was supposed to be a three-month course, but it lasted five. It knocked her sideways.’
Yet Caroline’s fighting spirit never wavered.
‘She’d get up at 4am to go to the gym, even with lung cancer. She barely drank. She was just… powerful’.
Even when she was suffering, she’d just say, ‘It doesn’t get you anywhere’, Daniel says.
That Christmas, Caroline’s oncologist at Queen’s Hospital in Romford greeted the couple with a smile.
‘She told us the cancer in Caroline’s lungs had gone down to much lower levels,’ Daniel recalls. ‘I thought she was going to say it was gone. Then she said, “It’s never going to go away, Daniel.” That hit me hard.’
Caroline, ever stoic, brushed it off. ‘”Don’t worry,” she told him’. “‘I’ve proved them wrong before. I’ll do it again.”‘
A few weeks later, during a celebratory holiday in Tenerife, Daniel got down on one knee and popped the question.
‘She said yes,’ he said. ‘She started planning the wedding straight away.’
Daniel proposed to Caroline in Tenerife, but she began experiencing stomach pains on the trip
Daniel has been documenting his preparations for the mammoth trip on TikTok and has been collection donations for equipment needed to take Caroline home one final time through his GoFundMe channel
But the fairytale was short-lived. Caroline began to suffer severe stomach pains on the trip.
Back home, scans showed the cancer had returned, attacking her intestines.
Despite her agony, she refused to complain. ‘She just wanted to protect everyone else,’ Daniel said.
By March 2024, Caroline began suffering pain behind her eyes. Daniel noticed she had started holding the bridge of her nose on a regular basis – something Caroline put down to hayfever.
But scans revealed a tumour in her brain. Once again, doctors gave her six months to live. She smiled when she told Daniel. ‘She said, “They always say six months”.’
Delays in treatment proved devastating. ‘The hospital waited two months for a biopsy, and a further two weeks for results,’ Daniel says. ‘By then, the lung cancer had got aggressive.’
Caroline reluctantly agreed to another round of chemotherapy – the treatment she had once sworn she’d never do again.
‘It was horrendous,’ Daniel says. ‘But for two weeks afterwards, she was vibrant. It was like the old Caroline had come back.’
But shortly after, everything changed.
Driving her daughter to work one morning, Caroline suddenly began seeing double.
The tumour had crushed her optic nerve, leaving her blind. ‘She told me, “I can cope with anything – but not losing my sight”,’ Daniel recalls, his voice breaking.
‘It was the only time I ever saw her truly defeated.’
Radiotherapy helped a little, but by spring she was frail, having lost 20kg.
The couple set up a bed downstairs because she could no longer climb to the next floor. On November 4, she told Daniel she wanted to go to St Francis Hospice in Romford ‘just for symptom management’.
‘When I wheeled her out of the house, she looked back, like she was saying goodbye,’ he says softly.
‘I told her, “Don’t worry, baby – we’ll be home by the weekend”. She just put her hand on my shoulder and didn’t say a word.’
By March 2024, Caroline began suffering pain behind her eyes. Daniel noticed she had started holding the bridge of her nose on a regular basis – something Caroline put down to hayfever
On November 6, 2025, the anniversary of Caroline’s final hospital admission, he will begin a 5,073-mile journey on foot from Saint Francis Hospice in Romford to Kumasi, Ghana
Caroline died on 11 November, 2024, aged 45, five days after arriving at the hospice.
Three weeks before her death, Caroline made one final request – for part of her ashes to be scattered in Ghana, the country she had grown up in.
‘Before she passed away, I think it was on a Friday night, I told her I wanted to take her ashes back to Ghana for her. But I said I want to do that by walking you back to Ghana to raise some money for charity, and she said, “would you do that for me?”, I said, of course I would, babe.’
Now, nearly a year later, Daniel is preparing to fulfil that promise.
On November 6, 2025, the anniversary of Caroline’s final hospital admission, he will begin a 5,073-mile journey on foot from Saint Francis Hospice in Romford to Kumasi, Ghana.
The route will take him across France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast and finally into Ghana – a ‘dangerous’ journey expected to take many months.
But Daniel has no reservations.
‘The tough thing is, Caroline and I weren’t even together two years, but she has been the most influential, important person in my life ever. I’m a completely different person.
‘She showed me so much, not just through her ability to love, but if you was in Caroline’s fold, she would do anything for you.’
Daniel has already scattered some of Caroline’s ashes in Folkestone, at a little bench they used to sit at that overlooked France.
‘There are reasons for that, I think,’ Daniel said.
