A supercar designer thanks his surgeons with a robot named George — and a Cincinnati lemonade stand that has raised $5 million
The McLaren F1's designer pays for the surgical robot that treated his cancer, and a Cincinnati child's lemonade stand grows into a $5 million charity for children facing hardship.
Gordon Murray designed the McLaren F1. In 2024 he was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a cancer of the oesophagus, and a surgical robot at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford took the tumour out. 1
On Monday he walked back through the hospital doors, with his wife Stella, to look at the machine his own money had bought. 2
It is a da Vinci 5, the newest version of the robot that had operated on him. Murray had been thinking about leaving the money in his will, and changed his mind. "It can start saving people now," he said. 1
What the gift buys
The trust describes the donation as a multimillion-pound robotic surgical system, given through Royal Surrey Charity. 2
Robotic surgery is already routine in Guildford. More than 30 surgeons at the trust perform robotic-assisted operations, and it is one of a small number of UK centres to have carried out more than 10,000 of them. 2
The surgeon stays in charge, sitting at a console and steering the instruments through incisions a few millimetres wide. 2
David Walker, a consultant at the hospital, put the value of this one machine at up to 600 patients a year. "Robotics has really changed the way we treat patients," he said. 1
Murray's own cancer was found during a routine endoscopy, ordered to keep an eye on a long history of acid reflux. The diagnosis came almost a decade after his brother Terry died of the same disease. 2
Professor Shaun Preston performed the operation. Within months Murray was back at his drawing board, working ten-hour days again on high-performance cars. 2
The robot now has a name: George, after Murray's friend George Harrison, the Beatle who died of cancer. Three of the trust's other robots have been named John, Paul and Ringo. A fifth is called Bob. 2
"It makes something like winning the 24-hours of Le Mans seem insignificant, this is going to save lives," Murray told BBC Radio Surrey. 1
Louise Stead, the trust's group chief executive, said the gift would reach "thousands of patients and their families for many years to come". 2
The trust is preparing to open a Cancer and Surgical Innovation Centre, and the Murrays toured it during the same visit. 2
One stand, then a hundred
In Cincinnati there is a second version of the same move, and it started with a teddy bear. 3
Payton Obert was 18 months old and in hospital with a problem with her stomach when a charity gave her the bear. She named him Teddy and kept him. "He has helped me through a lot, and he means a lot to me," she told WKRC in Cincinnati. 4
At eight she set up a lemonade stand and raised $768, all of it spent on toys for other children in hospital. 3
The next summer the same stand raised ten times as much. In 2020 she was ten and had turned it into Payton's Pals, eight stands across Cincinnati and Kentucky that brought in $35,000 in cash and toys. 3
A year later Payton's Lemonade Stand became a registered nonprofit, and that summer it put 100 young people behind 30 stands. 3
The event has grown since. In 2025, 100 stands across Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky raised $150,000 in three hours. This year's total was $170,000, with stands in West Virginia, Baltimore and New Mexico. 3
Eight years in, Good News Network puts the running total at $5 million in gifts and necessities: toys, but also food, clothing, books and school supplies for children whose families are struggling. 3
"We are a lemonade stand that gives 100% of our proceeds to kids in need," Payton told WKRC in 2023, the year the annual goal first reached $100,000. 4
The stands go up each July, and anyone who wants one in the next round can register to host, or give to the fund directly. 56
What stays with me is the timing in both stories. Payton Obert was eight, and Gordon Murray had a will to write, and each of them chose the version that starts working now.
References
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- 2Life-saving surgery inspires multi-million-pound gift
royalsurrey.nhs.uk
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- 5Our programs
paytonslemonadestand.org
- 6Donate
paytonslemonadestand.org
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