Miriam and I will be riding from St Bees on the Cumbrian coast to Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast in September.  It's a route based on Alfred Wainwright's famous coast to coast walk.  We'll be riding 340km across the Cumbrian Fells in the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors mainly on bridleways and wild trails.  It will involve over 9000m of vertical ascent (higher than Mt Everest!) over 4 days.  We hope to raise money for the inspirational 'Shout at Cancer' charity founded by my good friend Dr Thomas Moors. 

'Shout at Cancer' is the only charity in the world specialising in speech recovery and social reintegration after a laryngectomy (surgical removal of the voice box, usually due to cancer). It focuses on rebuilding lost confidence by challenging perceptions and redefining the boundaries of ability through voice training, singing, acting and beatboxing techniques.  The 'Shout at Cancer' choir has performed at venues around Europe, including the Belgian Embassy, Royal College of Surgeons, The Barbican and Victoria and Albert Museum in London and at Theatre at The Sea, an international festival in Ostend, Belgium.  In 2020, Peabody Award winning and 5 times Emmy nominated director Bill Brummel, released a feature-length documentary about the Shout at Cancer choir: 'Can You Hear My Voice?' The trailer can be viewed here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc_Dt358meI

The money raised will help to fund an inspirational collaborative art project between the 'Shout at Cancer' laryngectomy choir and the film maker and composer Phillip Clemo:

After the catastrophic nuclear explosions of 1945 scientists believed that nothing would grow in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for over 75 years. Miraculously, over 200 trees survived the bombs, some as close as hundreds of metres from the explosion epicentres. This project tells their extraordinary stories of resilience and intertwines them with the life-affirming narratives of members of the SHOUT AT CANCER choir. The choir was formed by and for cancer survivors who have had laryngectomies (removal of the voice box) after being treated with radiotherapy: the healing side of the dichotomous legacy of radiation.

FROM SILENCE INTO SONG is a great new platform for the choir, significantly raising its international profile and that of the transformative work carried out by the 'Shout at Cancer' charity. This opportunity will mean that the organisation can help many more cancer survivors in the future. Like the trees, our choir members were once silent but they will now be singing together in harmony and spreading their inspiring messages of resilience and hope.

This project has been developed by Dr Thomas Moors at 'Shout at Cancer' with filmmaker & composer Philip Clemo.