My sister Thomasin, known to everybody as Thommy, died of meningitis in December 2008 whilst on an Oundle School trip to St Petersburg.
As a family we have decided that the most appropriate living memorial to Thommy is to establish a Thommy Purbrook General Scholarship at Oundle where she spent five extremely happy and fulfilling years before her tragic death. The aim of the scholarship is to provide a child who would not otherwise be able to go to the School with the opportunity to do so, and therefore benefit from the experience as Thommy did herself.
Together with some good friends (Asher Simons, James Bird and Rory Houston), I plan to raise the most money in one go by completing a unique triathlon which we are calling the Arch to Arc Challenge. We are going to run, kayak and cycle the 289 miles from Marble Arch in London to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
We will run the 84 miles from Marble Arch to Dover in overlapping stages so that we all run a marathon. We will then kayak the 21 mile crossing of the Channel together in two-man kayaks, and finally we will all cycle the 184 miles from Calais to Paris. This challenge will start on Friday 18th June 2010.
The money raised shall be shared between Thommy's Scholarship Fund and the Meningitis Research Foundation, a charity recommended to us by the doctors who tried to save Thommy's life.
We hope that you will feel able to support Thommy's fund and the MRF and are very grateful for any sponsorship contributions you can make.
