This summer Paul Parry and me are taking on the Three Peaks Challenge, ably supported by Ghika Savva. We are adding an ATP twist – cycling the 500 or so miles – when not walking 23 miles and 10,000ft of vertical ascent! We start in Fort William, the three of us climbing Ben Nevis on Sunday 30^th June, then Paul and I cycling via Paisley and Gretna Green to the Lake District. Meanwhile, I am trusting Ghika to carefully drive the new mean machine through the high roads of both Scotland and the Lakeland Fells, providing our team back up before we all clamber up Scafell Pike with ATP friends on Wednesday 3^rd July. Then we cycle from Eskdale, via Warrington to Betws-y-Coed and head up Snowdon with more of the ATP tribe on Saturday 6^th July. 

The three of us are taking on this challenge in tribute to Zoe Parry, our friend and Paul’s late wife, who we lost to breast cancer two years ago. Zoe was one of the earliest members of the ATP family and a massive support to me when I set up ATP in Bradford-on-Avon. She came to all my classes, encouraged me at the outset; her calm presence helped create the warm, inclusive and welcoming atmosphere that makes up our classes here in Bradford. We received the devastating news that Zoe had been diagnosed in May 2016 with triple negative cancer, but we all fully expected her to recover as she had been told it was treatable. Zoe attacked the treatment with her normal organised strength; things were going well and we were hopeful until March 2017 when we were confronted with the terrible news that confirmed the disease had spread. Zoe was not fit enough to undergo any further treatment, and although the medical support was superb, she sadly passed away in Dorothy House Hospice in the May of 2017.

Many of us have been affected by the loss of friends and family to cancer and are aware of the support and care that Dorothy House provide to patients and their families at this time and after bereavement. Paul tells me that the staff were amazing to Zoe and their boys and deserve all the support we can give them so they can continue to offer help to families like his in the future.

I have cajoled Paul, into joining me on this challenge and I am totally and utterly blown away by his agreeing to do this and by his support during a very difficult period both for him and his family; he’s mad of course. Obviously we three are doing this for fun, but also to raise money for Dorothy House Hospice in her memory. So please donate what you can to this deserving cause in memory of our beloved friend Zoe. Wish us luck in July! TrevorB x