I am one of a team from Newport Rotary Lite who will be touring England this week to help end Polio.

Dozens of cars from other Rotary Clubs will be criss-crossing the UK and Ireland before parading through Halifax at the end of the week.

The Purple4Polio tour – or the “Banger Rally” as the Newport Rotary Lite team call it as all the cars have seen better days – is named after the purple mark every child receives on their finger after a Rotary-funded Polio vaccination. Polio is a vile disease that paralyses 1% of children it affects – and in the mid 1980’s when Rotary offered to lead worldwide in eradicating Polio there were 350,000 cases every year. That’s an awful lot of children avoidably suffering illness, breathing difficulties – does anyone remember the Iron Lungs here? – and paralysis.”

“This year the number of cases so far is in single figures – an amazing achievement, but we’re not there yet. Children are still being infected in hard to reach areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the number of Post-Polio Syndrome cases here in the UK is rising.”

“There were major outbreaks of Polio in the UK in the 1940’s and 1950’s, so unfortunately the number of people here suffering Post-Polio Syndrome is increasing – there may well be some people in Newport. Polio and its long term effects haven’t gone away, and we wanted to help wipe it out”.

The goal of the rally is to raise awareness for the fight and finally eradicate polio hopefully we can raise some money to fund the fight along the way. We will be driving over 1,000 miles and all our costs are being covered by the team taking part, or some of the amazing sponsorship we’ve received from local companies.”

Local companies have really helped us. Henshalls, Bellman’s Yard Garage, Carpet Loom and Newport Beds, SV Spares Ltd, Contract Clothing Ltd, Manesis Recruitment, Dolphin Signs, Cobham Air Services and RAF Shawbury have all helped.