In 1983 Nick lost his mother. He was only thirteen. Back then, professional support systems for bereaved children & mental health just weren’t as accessible as they are now, which meant that Nick had to deal with his grief as best he could, alone. And it was discovering tennis that gave him that crucial support.

Tennis has been a touchstone for Nick his whole life. Now at 51, a father of four and a successful businessman (he is the founder and CEO of Exacta Technologies), Nick wanted to do something that might help children today who, like him, have to deal with the loss of a parent. That’s when he turned to Grief Encounter www.griefencounter.org.uk/south-west/ ,a remarkable charity that supports bereaved children - and what could be a more appropriate way of fundraising than playing tennis?

This summer, on Friday 1July at the Long Ashton David Lloyd Centre, Nick will be taking to the court, along with the help of local ex-professional player Paul Maggs, for an 11 hour 38 minute game of tennis. That’s a significant time: it represents 41,000 seconds: one second for every child in the UK who has lost a parent in the last 12 months.

Nick & Paul will be stretched to the maximum in a gruelling test of mental and physical endurance. There is no doubt this challenge will be brutal, and the people that know him best say they are nuts to do it, but using tennis to push himself to the limit is what made the perfect support for Nick, when as a child, he needed it most. So it only seems fitting now, to give something back, Nick can use this sport again to help support hundreds more bereaved children.