Woman walks 30 miles barefoot for cancer charity

A SOFT tissue therapist from Henley braved heavy downpours when she walked almost 30 miles barefoot to raise money for a cancer charity.

Isabelle Brough joined a group of four volunteers from Berkshire charity My Cancer My Choices to walk 35.5 miles from Charvil to Newbury in honour of the charity’s 10th anniversary.

The walk took them past the four of its treatment centres in Berkshire, with the rest of the group starting at the treatment centre in Bracknell and walking 40 miles in total.

They also stopped at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading.

The group has raised almost £9,000 for the charity, which provides complementary therapies for people being treated for cancer.

Miss Brough, 55, has volunteered at the charity for 18 months, where she provides oncology massage therapy. She completed 28.5 miles of the walk with no shoes, which she said felt nicer than walking in wet socks.

Miss Brough said: “I’m still buzzing after it, I am just glad that my body has recovered.

“I thought it would be a bit of a challenge because I have never walked that far before with or without shoes.”

Mrs Brough said that she thought the walk might be called off, as a yellow-weather warning was in place for thunderstorms over the weekend.

She said: “It started a bit drizzly when I left at 6.20am, so we got a little bit wet in the long grasses along the river.

“It was much better than they said it would be because the forecast was dreadful, it looked worse and worse everyday – it was a yellow warning for thunderstorms so I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.

“The weather was better — we had a few showers and some dry spells and dried out in between but then from 4.30pm it really chucked it down.

“We waited under the bridges at Newbury but it wasn’t letting up. We couldn’t wait too long because it got cold so we would just wait five minutes and then went off.

“There were puddles everywhere — that was really hard because when the feet get wet, they get soft so I could feel the rocky path.”

She was joined by the “Thames Trotters”, Nicky Brown, Mandy Barter, and Fiona Pearce, who completed a 15-day walk along the Thames Path last year and raised almost £15,000.

Ms Barter founded the charity in 2015 following her own cancer diagnosis. It has since supported more than 2,000 people living with cancer.

The group finished at Deanwood Golf Club in Newbury at 9pm. Mrs Brough said that her daughter, Celine, and husband, David, were waiting for her at the finish line with a class of sparkling wine.

She said: “We had a finish line at the care centre at Newbury. We were meant to run through it but I couldn’t run. They gave us a medal and a drink of fizzy wine and just made us feel welcome. The next day I was really worried to get out of bed, I just thought, ‘oh, what is it going to be like?’ but it was fine.”

To donate to the charity, visit www.justgiving.com/team
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