Walk the Ridgeway

Product Description

London, England, United Kingdom

Supporter

As you may or may not know, last year we lost the wonderful mum, nan, wife, art teacher, crib-player, lager-drinker, smile-giver Pat Cliff after a few long years of suffering with dementia. We all miss her infectious laugh and seemingly endless capacity for love. Thousands of children who attended her art lessons at Millbrook Primary School will remember her enthusiasm, if not her love of Queen. Others will know her better from The Bell at Grove, her local pub, where she often played cards and drank the bar dry of Fosters.

In September last year, the brilliant team from The Bell at Grove participated in the Oxford Memory Walk in aid of Alzheimer’s UK, who fund vital research into dementia. This gave me an idea to quite literally go a bit further: I’m walking all 90 miles of The Ridgeway, Britain’s oldest road, starting at Tring on the 20th of August and (hopefully!) finishing atop Overton Hill on the 25th.

I decided to split the donations you provide between two charities. The first is Alzheimer’s UK, mentioned previously. The other is The Teapot Trust, which helps chronically ill children access art therapy. Pat owned a small mountain of art therapy magazines and books, and she’d be pretty chuffed to know she’s still helping children through art even after she’s shuffled off this mortal coil.

You can donate online or corner me in person, whichever you find easiest. Every penny helps; these charities and the people they work with will be infinitely thankful for your assistance.

Feel free to join me for a slice of the walk: 90 miles is a hell of a walk to do alone! You can find a map of the Ridgeway here: it goes South and West from near Luton, passing closeby to Aylesbury, High Wycombe, Wallingford, and good old Wantage, before ending up just South of Swindon. I’m walking from East to West, starting at Tring Station on Monday 20th and ending on Saturday 25th at Overton Hill. I’ll be walking between 8 and 16 miles a day, so a daily average of 13 miles is on the cards. Email me at [email protected] for more info, including accommodation along the walk and my (planned!) schedule.

If you can’t afford to donate and you’re not up for the walk, I’d be infinitely grateful if you could share this page to spread the word. Retweets, shares, word-of-mouth… it all helps, and part of the reason I’m posting this so early is so that more people can be reached. The more exposure the better!

Thanks a million.

Love from Bonnie x

Click here to find out more about Alzheimer’s UK.

Click here to find out more about The Teapot Trust.

Alex Viccars

7 years ago

£5

Bonnie Cliff