Hello, I’m Barrie Saunders, and I work for HW Martin (Traffic Management) Ltd. I’m Crowdfunding for a good friend of mine and fellow HW Martin colleague, Vern Westcott. Vern is a much-loved character from our depot in Kent, known as Mill Place.

Vern has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. He recently recovered from a quadruple heart bypass, making this latest diagnosis even more heart-breaking.

In order to Crowdfund as much as possible for Vern I’ve set myself a walking challenge. I’m no stranger to these sorts of things having walked 1 million steps in less than 2 months to raise money for mental health awareness last year. But this has to be my most ambitious challenge yet!

I’m not someone who can just stand by, so I want to do something nice to show Vern what he means to me, and to help him with the additional expenses a diagnosis like this can bring.

I’m walking the equivalent distance of all 11 HW Martin (Traffic Management) Ltd depots, one-after-another, in 100 days.

That’s 826 miles* in total, or 1.8 million steps in just over 3 months.

The route (if I were to actually do it) would go from our depot in Durham, to Widnes; then on to Blackwell, Coventry, and Peterborough, before visiting Witham (Essex), Mill Place (Kent) and our colleagues at Amber Langis in Maidenhead. Then on to Winchester, Tormarton, finishing in South Brent.

To be clear, I’m not raising money for a charity, the funds raised will go directly to Vern and his wife Sue to support them in these difficult times.

I would like to invite you to support me in my walking challenge and raise some money for a treasured friend and a valued colleague.

*driven miles worked out using Google Maps