A Staple Fitzpaine farmer is walking the full 660 miles of the South-West coast path in one go, to raise money for good causes in his wife's memory.

Mark Pope is a former Chairman of the Environment Forum for the NFU, is raising money for St Margaret’s hospice and the MND association.

In 2021 his wife Julie was sadly diagnosed with MND and she died in October of last year. During her illness she, Mark and their family were supported by both the MND association and St Margaret’s Hospice and it for these two worthwhile charities that he is taking on the coast path challenge.

He left Minehead on 3 April and has coped with everything the British weather has thrown at him - and blisters!

Mark said: "The one thing that was so special for me, Julie, Tom and Emily was that when Julie was admitted to St Margaret’s hospice they got us a cuddle bed. This is in effect a double hospital bed. What this did is to enable us to all cuddle Julie, something we had not been able to do for over a year.

"I want to raise funds to enable the hospice to buy another cuddle bed to help others cuddle their loved ones. I am also fund-raising for the MND Association to ultimately help find a cure for this horrible disease."

So far, Mark has already passed the £5,000 target but given that the cost of a cuddle bed exceeds £10,000 anything that anyone can contribute to these two worthy causes would be greatly appreciated.

Donate here.