My wonderful brother-in-law, Mark Tippett, shared my love of history and adventure. He was generous, always good company and he showed an amazing tolerance for my bad jokes. He tragically died in April 2024 following a battle with cancer.

I'm raising money for the Sue Ryder Foundation in memory of him and as a thank you to the Newbury Community Service Team (part of the Duchess of Kent Hospice in Reading). The care and support they gave him, my sister Alison, and niece Anna was remarkable. The Team was there when Mark and his family needed them; I saw them in action and was truly impressed with their friendly, cheerful and professional approach in such difficult circumstances.

Mark wanted his family and friends to remember the charity Sue Ryder so they could help others in the way that the Team had helped him. Cancer care services are really stretched at the moment and need funds badly. [Update 29 March - I've raised my fundraising target for a 3rd time, now to 6k because everyone is being wonderfully generous - THANK YOU!!]

All through his long and often challenging illness Mark would dig deep to put on a warm and truly genuine demonstration of hospitality and cheerfulness for the people around him; right until the last day or so he was still receiving visitors. Mark's fortitude over a period of years was an inspiration to me and I wanted to pay tribute to his life and the willpower he showed by raising money for Sue Ryder in his name.

I've set myself three very tough challenges:

a) the first is to climb Kilimanjaro which at 5894 metres (19,340 ft) is the highest mountain in Africa. I am starting on 3 October 2024 and it will be the highest mountain I will ever climb. I am paying all my own costs and carbon offsetting the entire trip. They say that tackling a secondary peak before the major one helps with altitude sickness; Horsenden Hill near Wembley, at a lofty 85m above sea level, is the best I've managed to do, beforehand but every little helps! [UPDATE - 15 Oct 2024 - I've now completed this part of the challenge! See additional information + pics in update posts below. THANK YOU ALL for your encouragement]

b) In the lead up to the London Marathon I planned to run 2500 km (approx. 1550 miles) in training from May 24 to April 25. It will be the furthest distance I will have ever run in a year; it's like running from London to Dover, through France and Spain to Gibraltar and on to Fez in Morocco. On 29 Mar I hit that target, almost a month ahead of schedule. Pic below of an early training run along the Grand Union Canal (the weather's not often that good!)

c) my final challenge is to run the London Marathon on 27 April 2025. I have never run a marathon before, and am leaving it quite late in life. I'm enjoying discovering exotic bits of London in my training though! [UPDATE 6 Mar - I've now done 2 'trial' marathons on my own just to get a feeling for what it feels like - the last 4k yesterday was really tough, so I need to work on eating and drinking enough, but I did it faster than the run last month. More info in updates below]

I know there are lots of very deserving causes and many competing demands on everyone's resources, but I hope you will be able to support me in helping this great charity in memory of Mark who I miss so much. With the money I raise more people like Mark and their families can be supported with specialist care through incredibly difficult times.

Thank you SO much.

Duncan