Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Why am I fundraising?

So, as most of you will know I lost my dad when I was 6 years old. I woke up one morning, one completely average morning and I went in to my parents’ bedroom as I always did. But there was nobody in there. My neighbour was downstairs and she told us (me, 6 and my sister, 4) that they were in the hospital cause my daddy was poorly. He’d had a heart attack and then a piece of that blood clot had broken free and moved round his circulatory system to his brain causing a stroke. I remember asking my mum when we saw her if when he was better we could go to the theme park.. Within 48 hours he was gone forever. He left behind a grieving widow with 3 children of 6, 4 and 2 years old to raise alone. Mum did an amazing job, there isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not in awe of how much strength it must have taken for her to get through that, she is an incredible woman and my siblings and I are so blessed to have her. My dad died on the 30^th of August 2003 at age 37, this August it will have been 15 years. I am doing this for both of them.

Why these charities?

I’m raising money for the British Heart Foundation and for Winston’s Wish (a charity for bereaved children). Please donate an equal amount to each cause – they are on separate Just Giving pages but are linked together in a team here :  https://www.justgiving.com/teams/552m4WWnBHF

The British Heart Foundation do research into heart disease. Heart disease is a massive killer and it killed my dad – if I could help power research that stops just one young woman from losing her husband like mum did, stops one child from having to lose a parent like I did, I’d be over the moon.

Winston’s Wish support bereaved children by counselling, supporting families and raising awareness of the emotional and welfare needs of children who have lost someone. They have camps, kind of like PGL but your parent comes along. You get put into a group with other children your age and do all sorts of activities; regular ones but also activities to process your loss and commemorate the person. I don’t know how old I was when I went, but I remember it, and my little sister who is 2 years younger does too. I remember how astonishing and unifying it was to be around a whole group of kids my age that had all lost a parent. None of us needed to explain how we felt, we just understood. The work Winston’s Wish does is so so important, I’ve benifited from it, now I want to give something back.

What am I doing to raise money?

Starting mid-June next summer (2018) I will be hiking 450 miles (that’s 670km) of the South West Coast Path. I will be carrying everything I need on my back. I plan on camping my way round, with one night in a hostel a week so I can have a proper shower and hopefully not smell too bad! I estimate it will take me 7 weeks of walking every day. I’m going to start at Bude, north Cornwall and walk around the entire coast of Cornwall and South Devon to Lyme Regis, Dorset. I will be funding the cost of the walk entirely myself so all the money I raise will go directly to BHF and WW.

The SWCP is notoriously hilly, a hiker who has done the whole thing has climbed the equivalent of 4 Everest’s on completion!!! It also can suffer from brutal weather as it is all coastal and exposed. It’s safe to say it’s going to be a challenge, a massive horrible terrifying challenge... but I’d do it 1000 times over if it’d bring my dad back. So please please please support me and give something, no matter how small, to these incredible charities – I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support.

Follow my journey training and completeing this on instagram @the_zany_hiker

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