Fundraising for the National Brain Appeal

A walk on the wilder side....

Richard's fundraiser for The National Brain Appealjustgiving.com

I had been thinking about this for months, but first I had plantar fasciitis, then I got Covid, and then.... Inertia set in. However, As the New Year dawned, I just felt I had to do something, and, despite the flooding and the rain and the dark, I saw a brief window between storms and decided to go for it.... A sponsored walk from my home in Snettisham to Wells-next-the-Sea, a distance of some 32 miles, in two days, attempting to raise money for The National Brain Appeal, (formerly known as The National Hospital Development Foundation) which is the charity dedicated to raising vital funds for The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, which supported my wife, Amanda, in the early years after her diagnosis..

As they say on their website: Our vision is to improve the outcome and quality of life for the one in six affected by a neurological condition. We do this by funding pioneering research, providing access to the best technology for expert diagnosis and treatment, and training tomorrow’s clinicians.

So.  I set out just after eight in the morning of Sunday January 7th. I would have taken the scenic route across the Marsh, but this is how it is at present:

Instead I had to start out taking the more prosaic Beach Road, and then cut along the sea defence, but happily I was not alone.  Give me sunshine and I find this fellow keeps me company:

My first stop is Amanda's care home, in Heacham, where I try to explain what I am doing. Sadly it is no longer easy to communicate, as, twelve years or so into her decline (though still not yet seventy) Amanda is no longer able to speak (or walk, or feed herself, etc).....

Later, as I walk beside the cliffs at St Edmund's Point, Old Hunstanton, I pass the wrecked hull of the Steam Trawler Sheraton, and it seems a sad symbol of the wreck of Amanda's life, (though there the similarity ends).

Much of this walk, indeed most of it, I have done in happier times with Amanda.  The beach at Holme, for example, was a favourite place for us.  Huge skies, vast sands and the ebb and flow of the sea. A beautiful place for fresh air, healthy exercise (though what good did that do?) and peace.

As the day began to fade, and the temperature dropped, I clocked up sixteen miles and checked into the Lifeboat Inn at Thornham, where I was given a warm welcome, with a generous discount.  This too was a favourite of ours, for a drink or something to eat, though we had never stayed there.  This time I made the most of it, in a very comfortable room, with a lovely bath, though I was sad that Amanda could not be with me.

In the morning of Monday, January 8th, I again set off not long after eight, heading East, into a cold wind, shrouded by a grey sky.  Passing Titchwell, where I had lived when a residential volunteer with the RSPB, I then head for the boardwalk alongside the reed beds at Brancaster.  Here I nearly get diverted, as the 1.7 km old, narrow and rotten timber walkway is being replaced with Glass Reinforced Plastic, 1500mm wide with passing places.  It is estimated that this should last in good condition for more than 80 years - so, I will be back!

Anyway, despite several wonky warnings, I follow the muddy paw prints of dog walkers and make it to Brancaster Staithe Quay without mishap, where my ship awaits (I wish....!)

From here is is a muddy and bitterly cold walk across the marshes, with white stuff blasting in from the North Sea, past Burnham Deepdale and Burnham Norton, to Burnham Overy Staithe where My Hero awaits with welcome Alms.....

But I mustn't linger, despite banter concerning a long hot bath with Barry White (don't ask) and a pint of Wherry and some crisps beside the log burner.  I have to cross the desert of Holkham Sands yet..... Which is where, with the gale stirring up a blinding mist of cold sand, I think I can just make out Gwyneth Paltrow in a shite (sorry - that's a typo,  I meant, 'white') dress in the distance.....  Can you see?  There, on the horizon, a dream-like whisp.....

Alas (and Alack!)  'Tis but a Don Quixote moment, and the shimmering female figure I imagined turns out to be a notice requesting Naturists to keep their private parts within  certain limits (with a plastic skirt.....)

Back to the shifting sands of time, the draining hourglass of our days.....

But then, Oh Happy Sight!  Callooh Callay!  Four young ladies making the most of the clemency of the winter,  chez Old Pash, where they struggle to break the wind (I'm sorry?)

And I'm on the jolly beach, where Amanda and I brought our little girls one gorgeous summer all those days, months, years ago.....

Which means I near my destination, the quaint little harbour of Wells-next-the-Sea.....

Where, a mere thirty-two foot miles from my home, I can slip into yet another hot bath (*sans Barry White, you do understand?) at the welcoming Globe Inn....

And shed my weary boots at last.....

It has been quite a walk.  I wasn't sure how it would go (I haven't walked more than ten miles in a day for years) and I don't class myself as 'fit' (in any way), but I am relieved to say that I made it, in one piece, without blisters or too much pain.  In fact, despite the slightly morbid raison behind the d'être I have enjoyed it.  See?  Me cheerful!

And then, through the marvels of the InterWeb and the socialism of the media, I launch my appeal for sponsorship via a Just Giving page I created.  I set a tentative target of £300 to be going on with, but by the time I hit my second pint in the bar, the contributions have topped £500!  

Then, by midnight (I don't sleep well, even though I have been overinflated with fresh air) I find we are over £1,000!  Fantastic!  And thanks to all, friends, acquaintances and strangers, who have chipped in their mites and mighties.....  Cheers to you all!

Then, in the morning, I take the bus home, in freezing sunshine.  The sun rises on another day as I ride the 36 in great comfort.

By the time I get to Heacham, and drop in to see how Amanda is today, we are almost at £1,500, and still the emails keep coming.  I just wish I could help her understand.....

But thank you all.  The one thing I do know is that, if she could speak, Amanda would say thank you for your love and support, and she would be hopeful that in the not too distant future others like her, who lived a smiley, lovely life and caused so much good around her, won't face the devastation of this illness.....  Let us trust that this will come about.

And if you would like to contribute to this charity please follow this link:

Richard's fundraiser for The National Brain Appealjustgiving.com

Thank you,

Richard

PS At 3.15 pm on January 9th 2024 contributions (including Gift Aid) have already passed £2,000!

PPS On 25th March 2024, I received a letter from The National Brain Appeal stating that combining what I raised by the walk with donations in Amanda's name (following her death on February 1st) the total raised is now £5,294.60 including Gift Aid.

If you can read my mind Why must I speak?

Do I need your permission

To turn the other cheek?

Forgive the pun, but I am a little horse......

My sunflowers are dry, which doesn't suit the admiral, here in Nelson Country.....

There's a tangle of knots on the horizon.  The days are shrinking; unlike my cares.....  I don't have priority on this but my knots are tangling more and more every passing day.  And here comes the darkness, as sure as the rising tide.

Nearer the shore there is a mix of sanderling and little ringed plover - how good they can share their burdens.

Sweet mouthfuls.  Is there anything more lovely?  Nature au naturel?

Not far away the North Sea (the German Sea?) reaches out across the wastes to a curving horizon beyond my grasp.....

It is blessedly quiet - in my opinion - after the drifts of holiday makers in the school recess, though this beach had the space (it was the approach roads that suffered). Today it is sparsely populated......

Maybe because the airways are reopening?

I am tried by paradoxes.  I love the simplicity of solitude.  But I am never alone.  And then I wish I was.  But then again I yearn company.  Except that too much is more than enough.

Give me space....

But don't desert me, Bird Friday with your dinosaur tracks.....

Well, God is in His heaven

And we all want what’s His

But power and greed and corruptible seed 

Seem to be all that there is

I'm listening to Bob Dylan's latest release: Springtime in New York - The Bootleg Series Vol.16 1980-1985.

Not everyone's preference - understood.  Times have moved on and it is my bad that I am rutted in this particular past.  

But then we all have our tender fragrancies,

And I can tell you one thing

Nobody can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

Bob Dylan

I still have a wonderful vinyl LP by Blind Willie McTell that I bought in Lancaster with my friend Ray Steele in 1969, on which there is the unforgettable song, Dying Crapshooter's Blues:

I want nine men going to the graveyard, bubba

And eight men comin back.....

I walked with Amanda by the high tide flooded road at Brancaster and saw the swallows amassing ready for their flights south.  Each and every one of us: swallow, man, woman, insect, fish....  has to live as best we can.  

Nine men may go to my funeral, and eight men may come back.  But then, in due course, those eight will be seven, and so it goes.....

I want a gang of gamblers gathered 'round my coffin-side

Crooked card printed on my hearse

Don't say the crapshooters'll never grieve over me

My life been a doggone curse

Blind Willie McTell

1898 - 1959

Life's a Beach.....

A Moving Experience.....

Dear Friends,

Let this be a letter to you.

Nothing is what it seems.  Nothing really matters.  Our mothers give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more, (Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot).....

But every silver lining has a cloud.  We may be brief candles, and our creeps may be crepuscular, but there are gleams....

Life's a beach, and then one buries one.....

To the point. We have moved, and there is no going back, as the bard did say, O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that.

For the record, in a shutnell, the move went as well as could be wished.  Days of preparation and packing culminated in a final trauma of finding that the guys who removed the washing machine at the last minute had kicked a joint on the central heating piping causing soaked carpet and a potential flood.... But we had to go, and then we had to arrive, and we were here, with an avalanche of boxes in every room, and no where to put things.

Of a sudden, apart from everything else, I realised how trammelled we are, how materialist and cluttered our (my?) life has become.  I have possessions that possess me; possessions from my grandparents, from my parents, from my children, from my past and from my present.  Such a mountain of ultimate uselessness that I cling to, as if it defines me, as if it matters.

A goose flies over my head.  No baggage.  Just living.  

More geese honk past.  

Not one of them with so much as a handbag. Not one clutching a phone or a water bottle.... Naked as nature intended....

And flying on from day to day, heedless of the perils of tomorrow, unfettered by the imagination of the past.  It may not be a 'better' life, but what does that mean?  We live; we die; we come; we go.  What makes me more or less than a silly goose?

We are lucky if we have homes. However grand....

We are fortunate if we can afford luxuries - however small......

And there is always someone worse off.

At the time of the Bosnian war I lived in Rome, and sometimes we thought we could hear the conflict.  When things were difficult for us, I used to tell myself that things could be worse: we could be in Bosnia.  

As things are, Amanda has struggled with our move.  She still just wants to go 'home' and she has yet to settle into a routine. We have had doctors and paramedics involved, and are now being advised by Chatterton House, but, I hope, she will adapt, and life will go on. 

And despite all that, I dedicate this piece to two of my dear friends who have recently come up against the big C. Forza amici! Un abbraccio forte forte.....

There is always someone worse off....

I wish we could all be together. Some whirling big dance in a natural space. Some laughter, some wine (some beer, perhaps?) Nothing viral.  Just clean air and smiling faces.  

It cannot all be bad.

As I said,

Let this be a letter to you.  To you, my friends.

We are OK.  

I hope you are too.

With love from

Richard

We are all born mad. Some remain so.

Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot (1955)