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Geoff Young

Russ Ingham

Geoff's story:

In the 1960's my Nan suffered from a detached retina - in those days it was a case of staying in hospital for a number of weeks and keeping very still.

I remember her telling me stories of how she would hallucinate and see animals around the bed due to both her eyes being covered for an extended period of time.

She eventually recovered but her sight was always very poor and slowly deteriorated with age.

She was unable to read books or newspapers and always struggled to identify family members in photographs. This always saddened me.

When I first came across Orbis in the 1980s it immediately struck a cord with me. What could be a better cause than saving and restoring peoples sight in places where without this help poor vision or blindness is the norm.

Sight is a most precious gift. To lose this for the sake of a few pounds is madness.

So I have always supported Orbis - the flying eye hospital.

My friend Russ and I intend to walk coast to coast (approx 190 miles) in June 2018. The challenge starts in St Bees, Cumbria and finishes in Robin Hoods Bay, North Yorkshire.

We intend to complete it in 15 days.

This picturesque challenge gives me an ideal way to raise money for Orbis and be so thankful for my own vision.

Russ's story:

For a number of years I have relished the opportunity of attempting a number of long distance walks in the U.K. Having taken a sabbatical from my working career I am hopefully in the position of being able to undertake some of these.

Whilst discussing with Geoff what I was intending to do with my spare(?) time it transpired that we had a mutual interest in attempting Wainwrights Coast to Coast walk and agreed that we would plan to do this in June 2018.

Now that the planning has been done I have been telling people of our intentions and a number had asked if we were doing it for charity. Whilst this was not the original motivation for the walk it does seem like an ideal opportunity to attempt to raise some money for a deserving cause to help people less fortunate than ourselves and something that we would regret not having done.

Geoff suggested that we raise money for Orbis which I think is a great idea and am pleased to support particularly when you consider the dramatic affect a small donation could make to someone's life. Throughout the walk I shall be mindful of how fortunate I am to have the vision to attempt this, what I hope will be, enjoyable challenge.

Thanks for your support.

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