We are going to do it. Walk the walk. This will be a 're-run' of the Sponsored Walk pupils, staff and parents from Shebbear College did on May 18th 1969 in aid of the then Sir Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children. This time past pupils from the College are organising the walk.

The 2025 sponsored walk will take place this year on Sunday 18th May, exactly 56 years to the day after the original walk. You could say it was meant to be.

It will follow the original route across Dartmoor, starting in Okehampton near the Military Camp and ending in Chagford with drop-out points along the way. There will be 12mile, 18mile and 24+mile routes the difference in length being towards the end with loops around Chagford.

We welcome all-comers to walk-the-walk: OSA members, their partners, friends, relations and whoever (and as it's fifty years later, we expect to be supported by a fair number of artificial knees and hips). A £10/person registration fee for walkers will help pay for transport from Okehampton to the start on the moor, and from Chagford back to Okehampton at the end. We will, please, need volunteers to help run the day as well.

The main objective is to raise money for CLIC Sargent better known as 'Young Lives vs Cancer'. CLIC Sargent is an amalgamation of the Sir Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children and CLIC. Originally, the School raised £2-2.5k, which in today's money is £40-50k. We would like to raise double that.

When a child is diagnosed with cancer life becomes full of fear, for them and their family. Fear of treatment, but also of families being torn apart, overwhelming money worries, of having nowhere to turn, no one to talk to. Young Lives vs Cancer help families find the strength to face whatever cancer throws at them. It so happens one of the walkers is grandfather to a boy who contracted cancer at the age of two. Young Lives vs Cancer was there for him. He is now a typical bouncy, irritating, opinionated ten year-old. So is his grandad.

To find out more visit www.younglivesvscancer.org.uk