Miles to Malts - starting 15 July 2025

Susan's Pennine Way Challenge has inspired one of her friends, Neville, to an even greater challenge: a 666 mile walk from Blewbury, Oxfordshire - to the Isle of Islay, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides.

Both Blewbury and Islay were special places for Susan, and it is therefore entirely appropriate that Neville's challenge should be in aid of Susan's MND cause. Neville will be walking the route from 15th July to 1st September 2025, with Paul Booer, who also completed the Pennine Way Challenge, and various friends joining them along the way. So please support them, and this important cause, by donating here.

Read on for the story behind Susan's Pennine Way Challenge.

In May/June 2022 Susan walked the Pennine Way with all her friends to raise money to find a cure for MND. Sadly her own journey with this disease has now come to an end - she passed away on 6th November 2023, less than three years from her first symptoms. It is too late now for her, but please donate in her memory so that future generations can live in a world free of this dreadful disease.-----Susan wrote the words below in 2021 to set the scene for the Pennine Way walk.

Your chance of winning the National Lottery jackpot is 1 in 45 million (and yes I still play it!) Your chance of getting motor neurone disease is 1 in 300. Surprised? I was too. I thought it was a really rare disease. It is compared with cancer and heart disease, but it’s not that rare is it? Every year in England about 1,500 people are newly diagnosed with MND. At any one time only about 5,000 people in the UK are suffering with MND but that’s because we don’t survive for very long.

Receiving a diagnosis of motor neurone disease is unbelievably hard news. There is no cure. There is no effective treatment. Average life expectancy is 3 years from onset of symptoms.

But it does not need to be this way in the future IF we put enough resource and funding into medical research.

I want to do my bit to contribute to funding research for a cure so that our children’s generation do not need to know motor neurone disease as a terminal illness. Please support me by donating to this essential cause.

WHY ME?At the beginning of 2021 I was a completely healthy 59 year old with an active lifestyle, an inspiring job, and a great social life. I was on no medication, had no medical issues and was physically fit with a healthy(ish!) diet and way of life. In springtime I noticed every now and again I didn’t pronounce a word properly, and every now and again a drink of water would go down the wrong way and I would splutter. We all do this though, don’t we? It got to be a bit more frequent so I went to see my GP. In July I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Devastating. For me, my husband Brian, my children Aidan and Jessica, my family, my friends.

I am a keen hiker. Brian and I had planned to walk England’s oldest and reportedly toughest National Trail, the 260 mile Pennine Way, upon retirement in a few years’ time. MND is not going to stop me! But I need to accelerate my plans. My Neurologist advises I should be OK to walk it provided I do so by spring/early summer 2022. However, we have a problem: Brian has recently had a hip replaced and so is unlikely to be able to walk the entire Path, a 4 week journey. I do not want to walk it on my own. So I am calling on ALL my friends to join me for as little or as much as they can. I am hoping for a big crowd – at least on the easier days!

And in doing so I am also calling on everyone to support this Challenge and sponsor us.

If you are interested in joining the Walk, which will be from 24th April to 21st May 2022, please do contact me.

The money raised will go to the MND Association, and will be channelled specifically for medical research into finding a cure for MND. Every £1 will be put to good use. For example it costs £750 to fund an expert researcher for one week. The MNDA is England’s main charity for motor neurone disease, raising funds for research and providing assistance to MND sufferers and their carers: