Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I know many of you will not know me, and quite a few of you who do, will not like me. But I beg you to put these pesonal prejudices aside. Because, at the end of the day, this isn't about me....

What? It is?  Well, yeah, OK it is abit., I s'pose. After all, it is me  who gave up the gaspers, it is me who at the age of forty...well, at an age when I should know better, agreed to do my first Great North Run, and it is me who's been scaring the good folk of Tyneside by puffing and panting my way past them as I drag myself throught the streets at God awful hours.

But enough about me.

This is really about the bairns. Because I will be doing the Run to raise funds for the Sunshine Fund. The Evening Chronicle's own charity which helps needy children here in the North East - the place in the whole of Britain where the need is probably the greatest.

So come on, dig deep in these hard times, and give a little to help a little 'un.