A BARROW widower has set off on his 1800 miles in 100 days charity challenge and is reliving happy memories along his journey.

Gary Rushworth, 64 is three days and 60 miles in to his 100 days and 1800 miles challenge raising money for Octopus, the world-first mega-trial for progressive MS funded by the MS Society to which he lost his wife, Moira to in 2020.

Gary began his grueling challenge on April 14 in Carlisle, the place and date Gary and Moira first met.

He said: “So far I have experienced in essence what I had hoped my journey would deliver. I have enjoyed reliving happy memories from when I first met Moira, when I plucked up courage to ask her for a date and the first date itself. At the same time I am creating new happy memories with Moira in spirit, meeting some wonderful people and some I haven’t seen for nearly sixty years.

“I started day one on the Solway Firth and walked into Carlisle along the Cumbria Coastal Way, the weather was overcast but warm. I walked a few miles with my brother-in-law and niece, and once in Carlisle I visited the house I lived in for the first nine years of my life and spoke to a neighbour who knew me from then, he was proud to tell me he is now the oldest resident on the estate! I finished the day at the shop I first met Moira.

“Day two took me further along the Cumbria Coastal Way following the River Eden to its estuary into the Solway Firth and finishing that trail at the Metal Bridge, the restaurant where Moira and I had our first meal out together.

“The first two days included a lot of road walking, though day three was proper trail walking starting on the Annandale Way from Newbie Barns following the course of the Annan upstream beyond the Hoddom Estate.

“It was a good twenty-three miles with plenty of interesting scenery and a variety of terrain, and it all started where I worked in 1984 on the same day I phoned Moira to ask her for our first date. A truly unforgettable day.

“Sunday will include a short walk of six miles retracing the journey when I picked up Moira from her home in Longtown to take her on our first date to The Cross Keys Hotel in Canonbie.”

You can follow Gary’s walk on social media at: https://www.facebook.com/WalkingforMS and https://www.instagram.com/walking_for_ms/ 

To sponsor Gary and help stop MS  visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/walking-for-multiple-sclerosis