We are walking 150 miles across southern England, from one
Wisden office to another, to raise money for the Laurie Engel Fund (Teenage Cancer Trust).
Laurie, the son of
Wisden editor Matthew Engel, died in September 2005, aged 13. His parents, Matthew and Hilary, set up the fund to help pay for a six-bed extension to the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where Laurie was treated for a particularly aggressive cancer. His medical care was excellent; the non-medical facilities were dismal.
The extension will allow teenage cancer patients to have some space to themselves – where they can just be teenagers. As well as giving patients more dignity, such wards also increase survival rates.
We set off from Upton Grey (near Basingstoke in Hampshire) at 10am on Saturday 19 May. Our first stop, after a gentle four miles, is the
Wisden office at the Golden Pot, near Alton. Or possibly the pub near by.
From there, in the company of an assortment of friends, family and colleagues, we take ten days, walking for between 15 and 19 miles a day, to reach the house in the Golden Valley, south-west of Hereford, where Matthew lives and works, and where Laurie lived and died.
We hope to stride (but expect to hobble) down the Engels’ drive some time after lunch on Whit Monday, 28 May. It would have been Laurie’s 15th birthday. See below for a rough itinerary of where we are when.
Please give us your support by sponsoring us, walking with us or, best of all, both. For more details of the Wisden Walk, please email either
hugh.chevallier@wisdengroup.com or
paul.coupar@wisdengroup.com. Or visit
laurieengelfund.org. If you haven't already seen it, you might also like to read Matthew's profoundly moving
piece in The Guardian about Laurie, and about his illness.
If you’d rather send a cheque, please make it payable to “TCT Laurie Engel Fund” and send it to one or other of our home addresses. Please email us if you're not sure where we live.
Thank you so very much for your support.
Hugh Chevallier and Paul Coupar
And oh yes, here's the bald itinerary:
Day 1: Upton Grey - Golden Pot - Dummer
Day 2: Dummer - Watership Down - Ashmansworth
Day 3: Ashmansworth - Buttermere - Ramsbury
Day 4: Ramsbury - Ogbourne St George - Clyffe Pypard
Day 5: Clyffe Pypard - Stopper's Hill (Brinkworth) - Somerford Keynes
Day 6: Somerford Keynes - Sapperton - Painswick
Day 7: Painswick - Gloucester - Tibberton
Day 8: Tibberton - Mitcheldean - Peterstow
Day 9: Peterstow - Hoarwithy - Kilpeck
Day 10: Kilpeck - Kentchurch - Bacton
