STOP PRESS: Following last April's amazingly successful Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge, GVA Grimley's Leeds office did the Dales Traverse, a 28 mile walk including 5000 gruelling feet (1 mile) of vertical ascent in picturesque Yorkshire scenery, on 1st April. After the snow and floods of the entire week before, we were unbelievably lucky and did the walk in sunshine and with fantastic clear views all round.

Buckden Pike, the highest part of the walk, was snow covered and the bogs were frozen over, but not enough to stop two walkers from falling into them up to waist level and having to strip off and redress before continuing for another 15 miles!

Other walkers (Andrea Hood in particular) hit the pain barrier and just carried on through it, achieving a great sense of exhausted satisfaction. Their efforts were inspirational and reminded us of what the walk was all about. The fastest walkers got round in a bit under 11 hours and the last ones 'home' got back after 13 hours and 15 minutes. An superb effort from everyone!

The walk was to help raise funds for Candlelighters, a Yorkshire based charity dedicated to helping support children with cancer or serious blood disorders and their families, whilst at the same time promoting research into childhood cancer. Research funded by Candlelighters at St. James's Hospital in Leeds contributes to national and international knowledge and understanding of how cancer develops and behaves.

Candlelighters has been helping a son of one of the walkers and is therefore particularly close and relevant to us. In these tough times, we would all be very grateful if you would sponsor us to help the good guys! Any amount is welcome and every penny goes direct to the charity.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.