In September 2025, I'll be joining a team of Prostate Cancer Research's leading supporters to trek "Le Chemin de la Liberté" (the Freedom Trail), following the footsteps of Allied soldiers and Jewish refugees on one of the iconic mountain routes they took through the Pyrenees to escape Nazi occupied France during WWII. The trek takes 4 days with a total distance of 50km from St Girons in France to Vielha in Spain, with a total elevation of 4,132m.

Together the team members are aiming to raise more than £100,000 for PCR's lifesaving work, funding innovative research to find the treatments of the future and ensure fewer families are impacted by this devastating disease. My own target contribution to this total is £5,000.

My interest in the mountains has usually been more winter- than summer-oriented, as the photo above of a recent training ascent in the Alps on skins suggests, but this is a cause close enough to my heart to get me out in hiking- rather than ski-boots. A number of friends and members of my close family have been affected by prostate cancer, and have endured a variety of invasive and sometimes debilitating treatments, ranging from surgery & hormone therapy to radiotherapy and chemotherapy, mostly successful but also with major after-effects.

I hope that by completing this challenge, I can help to encourage men over 40 to get themselves tested for prostate cancer, campaign for GPs to recommend such tests as a matter of course and raise money for this important & worthy cause.

You can support me by making a donation to this page, and thank you so much for your generosity.