We acknowledge gratefully the help and support for our trek from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon, Twelve Months to Raise a Million, from:

Hallmark Travel, East Grinstead www.hallmarktravel.com

Dale Bulbrook, Web Designs, East Grinstead www.webdesigns.ltd.uk

The Brasher Boot Company www.brasher.co.uk

in-press colour (printers) Dorking

Haskins Garden Centre, Snowhill, East Grinstead

Domino's Pizza, East Grinstead (Steve and Beccy Hough)

Sam Lambourne, The Jog Shop, Brighton www.jogshop.co.uk  

Wealden Workwear, East Grinstead www.wealdenworkwear.co.uk

TWELVE MONTHS TO RAISE A MILLION

August 28th 2007. I'm 71 today: and I've just started planning this Challenge, which will be a far reaching journey leading to a trek from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon on September 10th and 11th 2008, just after my next birthday.

We've got to get the attention and arouse the imagination of everybody: so I'm aiming to set a new World record for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event, and as a result, to raise an immense amount of money. A million.

The 'million' refers both to the number of sponsors and pounds sterling. This 'Challenge' has to be big in every way.

Where better could I base this 'Challenge' than the Grand Canyon, one of my favourite places on earth?

It is awe inspiring, and when I stand on the North Rim and look across miles and miles of twisting canyons to the distant South Rim, I have a profound sense of wonder and contentment despite the Challenge ahead. You start at the North Rim at 9,000ft, and descend the North Kaibab Trail to Phantom Ranch at 2,000ft where you cross the Colorado River. The temperature might be as high as 130F. You then climb up the steeper Bright Angel Trail, where the temperature might be even higher, through Indian Gardens to the South Rim at 8,000ft. It's tough, it's arduous, it's challenging and it's wonderful!

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

1 in 50 people in Britain will suffer from melanoma: and, without a guaranteed cure, a quarter will die. Even worse, the incidence is doubling every ten years.

So our objectives are to fund research, raise awareness and make diagnosis more easily available. A three pronged approach, which Myfanwy's Charity sets out to fund: and this 'Challenge' will be the vehicle to publicise this.

Melanoma is a 'silent killer'. 1 in 50 will suffer from malignant melanoma: unless it is caught early, it is almost untreatable. A quarter will die, many from tumours that have formed from the initial melanoma in the kidneys, liver or brain. Death then can be very quick. Even worse is the news that the incidence is doubling every ten years

It particularly affects people with an outdoor lifestyle: runners, walkers, golfers, rugby and football players, cricketers, gardeners, sun bathers. You'll find them in sports clubs, tanning salons and gyms or on continental holidays.

So we've got to publicise the disease, and the potential outcome, and find a cure. Many people have heard of melanoma. Most think that it is so obscure that it isn't worth bothering about. Well, it is! When I give a talk, about a third of the audience put up their hand when I ask if they know anybody who has suffered from melanoma: and they look round in surprise to see this reaction. If everybody who knows somebody who has had melanoma were to donate a pound, or take round a sponsor form, we'd raise millions: and ths would allow meaningful research, and enable early diagnosis centres to open (the only real cure, catch it early).

HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE THIS?

It takes a great amount of money to fund meaningful research to strive to find a cure for this terrible disease of malignant melanoma, one of the Diseases of the 21st Century, and from which Myfanwy died on October 20th 1999.

Most of all, we need YOU!

We need all our friends over the years to work away in Myfanwy's memory: for instance, the more than 1,000 players (and their parents) who built Felbridge Juniors Rugby Club from being a small village boys club in Sussex to become ranked amongst the top youth rugby clubs in the world entirely by their own efforts, and tour the world as a result (and there's a book to be written about this, just want to hear from you first!), the more than 1,000 runners who took part over 16 years in the 80 mile South Downs Way Run that we organised, the hundreds of friends over 40 years in East Grinstead Operatic Society, the hundreds of guys with whom I played and coached at Derby, St Abans, East Grinstead, Crawley and Wingspan Rugby Clubs, the thousands who read my columns in Rugby World and Garden News, the thousands who knew Myfanwy and myself at the major gardening Shows where we worked for Garden News, and further thousands with whom I worked and spoke at Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place for more than 20 years. Lots more friends in East Grinstead. And if YOU are reading this, it means YOU: it doesn't take much time to download a sponsor form from the Home Page, grab 30 sponsors, and send it back (with the money made out to the Charity) to the Myfanwy Townsend Melanoma Research Fund, 6 Manor Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 1LR.

Want to know more? E-mail harry@melanoma-fund.co.uk Or telephone 01342 322508.

So many thousands knew us both: so many knew Myfanwy and her wonderful smile: so many knew of her death from malignant melanoma, and the threat posed by this terrible disease. Please download a sponsor form, and get your friends to do similarly: or you can make a donation on JustGiving (and we get an extra 28% Gift Aid) on www.JustGiving.com/grandcanyon-rimtorim . Contact people you know, especially those who knew us, and get them on side. We've only got nine months to raise a million: doesn't matter how much, 10p, £10 (or more!), because a million sponsors will really raise the roof for fundraising and awareness of this killer disease.

But to let everybody know what we're doing, and why, we've got to generate publicity in the media: this is also our big chance to focus attention on malignant melanoma, one of the Diseases of the 21st Century. Do you know anybody in the media? Local, regional, national? Tell them about it: put them in touch with us. Not tomorrow: NOW!

Do you want a press handout? Or lots of leaflets? We've got them here, all ready to get to where it matters!

We're also producing a special commemoratve postcard, which will be posted from the bottom of the Grand Canyon

But it can't be done without the help of our many, many supporters: the Sponsor Form has been updated on our Home Page, and I hope that many of you will download one of these and take them round your friends, telling them what it's all about. I hope that some of you will be able to lend practical support also, because it's got to be a real team effort. We've got to get 33,334 people filling up a 30 sponsor sheet to get that Million: and that means PUBLICITY!

So we've got to build an immense support structure, both from individuals and also at major corporate level, which of course will be acknowledged here (with their logo and message) and we need support from the local, regional and national media: newspapers, magazines, radio, television. We've got less than a year to do it!

We need a national newspaper to embrace this project, and the reason for it: melanoma is one of the Diseases of the 21st Century.

We need television cover: chat shows, news programmes.

We need regular radio exposure at local, regional and national levels.

People with an outdoor lifestyle (running, football, rugby, cricket, gardening etc.) are at particular risk from melanoma: so I'm targetting publications and clubs.

Got any contacts, anywhere? Let me know, and pave the way. Nothing succeeds better than personal contacts.

We've already funded and equipped a laboratory within RAFT, at Mount Vernon Hospital, in Northwood, and recently donated £20,000 to fund a specialist skin cancer nurse in the rapidly expanding MASCU (Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit) within Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, which will serve four million people in the south east. Leeds United, our greatest supporter, funded a similar unit at St James Hospital in Leeds in memory of one of their coaches, Bruce Craven, who sadly died from malignant melanoma aged only 32.

Now we want to be the catalyst for more such units, wth early diagnosis and treatment: we want to publicise the dangers of melanoma. The Awareness Message is very simple. If anybody has a mole that is 'different', or 'changing', seek medical attention. Not tomorrow: NOW!

As usual, we're organising Melanoma Awareness Week again this year. This will be from June 14th to 22nd: and we'll be bombarding the media at every level with information in advance. Perhaps you can help? Again, have you got media contacts, no matter how local? We're all in this together: and if you can help, or want to get involved, please e-mail harry@melanoma-fund.co.uk giving the subject as Melanoma Research Support. We will acknowledge help and support on the website.

YOU are the key to success: the longest journey starts with a single step.

We are also about to open a Just Giving page for Twelve Months to Raise a Million

Pulling it all together will be my regular Diary (below): and we're keeping a running total of sponsors and money raised.

WHERE WILL THE MONEY GO?

The money raised will fund research on a practical level, and help to make diagnosis more readily available. The publicity that we will generate will inevitably raise awareness.

a) Professor Martin Gore of the Royal Marsden, our adviser and Myfanwy's consultant, wrote to me about the work being done by Professor Richard Marais and his team in a joint venture between The Royal Marsden and Cancer Research UK 'We recently discovered that a gene called BRAF is damaged in over half of the cases of malignant melanoma and have gone on to show that this damage not only induces the disease, but it also drives the disease once it has become established. We are therefore attempting to develop new therapeutic agents to target BRAF and determine if these can be used to treat the disease. This work involves basic scientists working at the bench and goes through to clinical studies in patients and we have assembled a broad team of specialists to perform these studies. We are particularly excited about translating our basic research know-how into clinical trials and thereby to develop new treatments for this devastating disease'

Cancer develops when a cell multiplies out of control to form a tumour, and in 2004 Professor Marais' team showed how faulty B-Raf could kick start this process. This gave them the information that they needed to start developing specific and potent drugs that can inactivate the faulty B-Raf protein and therefore stop cancers growing. They screened 23,000 chemical compounds to find those that can block the activity of B-Raf in cancer cells, and fond one molecule that could do this. They 'tweaked' the structure of this molecule to make forty different versions, two of which were effective in cells in the lab: but of course, a lot of work must be done before clinical trials can be undertaken. Professor Marais' team is also looking at proteins that work with with B-Raf, which could be targets for other drugs.

b) Professor David Russell, in a project funded by Cancer Research, of the University of East Anglia in Norwich is working on photodynamic therapy (PDT): the 'Golden Bullet'. This uses a laser (or other light sources) combined with a photosensitising agent (a drug that makes cells more sensitive to specific wavelengths of light) to destroy cancer cells. When light at these wavelengths is directed at cells containing the photosensitising agent, highly reactive oxgen molecules are produced, which destroy the cells. However, many photosensitising agents also get in to normal cells, which can lead to other tissues (such as the eye) becoming photosensitive (more sensitive to normal electric light or sunlight). Therefore, the ideal photosensitising agent would be one that enters only cancer cells, and not normal cells. This would increase the effectiveness of PDT, whilst also reducing the side effects.

His 'Golden Bullet' system delivers photosensitising agents to the cancer cells using gold nanoparticles, only 2 to 4 nanometers in diameter (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter!) He's already shown that these nanoparticles are taken up into cancer cells grown in the laboratory, and that more reactive oxygen molecules are created than if the photosensitising agent is given alone. Currently, they're looking at how these nanoparticles are distributed and checking that they are able to get into tumours in high concentrations. They're also assessing how effective the 'Golden Bullet' system is against melanoma in a laboratory model, compared to using currently available photosensitisers

David Derbyshire in the Daily Mail on Thursday June 21st 2007 wrote about this potential far more dramatically: 'A 'golden bullet treatment for cancer that tracks down tumours before wiping them out with a blast of heat ....The 'seek and destroy' technique uses an injection of microscopic glass spheres, coated in gold, which seek out potentially deadly cancers in the body. Once enough spheres have flocked to the tumour, doctors 'activate' them using a low energy beam of light. Unlike conventional cancer treatments, the 'golden bullet' approach uses no toxic chemicals and no radiation, reducing the risk of unpleasant side effects.'

c) Professor Tim Illidge at the Christie Hospital in Manchester is interested in developing treatments that specifically target cancer cells, whilst leaving healthy cells unharmed. Our bodies have a natural defence system which protects us from 'foreign invaders' such as bacteria and viruses. This is caled the immune system, and is able to recognise bacteria and viruses as being 'alien' to the body and destroy them. The immune system also recognises cancer cells as being different to normal body cells, but this recognition is not strong enough for it to destroy them, and so cancers carry on growing.

Professor Illidge is seeking to harness the power of the immune system to help fight cancer. He is investigating a new type of targeted cancer therapy that combines radiotherapy with the use of antibodes. Antibodies are proteins of the immune system that recognise and attach themselves to specific proteins on cells. He is using a novel antibody that stimulates the immune system to attack cancer cells that have already been damaged as a result of radiotherapy treatment. This will enhance the effect of radiotherapy. He has shown that this can work in lymphoma, and wants to see if it can work for melanoma and other cancers

d) We are interested to support education and awareness: and our funding support of a specialist skin cancer nurse within the NHS at the rapidly developing MASCU (Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit) at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead that will serve fouir million people in the south-east, and the support/sponsorship of a similar unit within St James Hospital at Leeds thanks to Leeds United, could be models for future investments by Myfanwy's Charity

These four are typical of projects that will be supported by Twelve Months to Raise a Million: the more we raise, the more we can do

Please help, this is one of the Diseases of the 21st Century and perhaps already affects somebody that you know. It has reached epidemic proportions. There's a lot to do, quickly: and we need your help! If you don't want to e-mail, I can be reached at Harry Townsend, 6 Manor Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 1LR: or e-mail at harry@melanoma-fund.co.uk: or on the telephone at 01342 322508

SPONSORS RUNNING TOTAL

Attribution Sponsors Donation Total sponsors Donations

April 2007 Rob Cooper, Clare Barnett 2 £ 10.00 2 £ 10.00

June 2007 In memory of Ian Beesley 159 £216.25 161 £226.25

June 2007 Teignmouth RC (Sarah Nesbitt) 129 £160.00 290 £386.25

March 1st 2008 371 sponsors total £ 742.69

March 12th 407 sponsors total £ 952.69 + 2 sponsors www.JustGiving.com/grandcanyon-rimtorim £55.00 + Gift Aid

April 15th 699 sponsors total £1,481.44 + 8 sponsors www.JustGiving.com/grandcanyon-rimtorim £235.00 + Gift Aid

May 5th 891 sponsors total £2,112.06 + JustGiving £475.00 plus Gift Aid

However, it's brought home to me that a vast amount of money towards the Million is not raised from individual sponsors, but from lots of donations and from a vast (increasing) number of fund raising events, plus collections during Melanoma Awareness Week etc.: for instance, in one week in February almost £7,000 was raised from four fundraising events.

So, I'm going to update the amount which has been donated from these other fundraisers towards the Million also: which currently stands at about £60,000 that we have in the bank to donate to the research projects that we are supporting with Twelve Months to Raise a Million. Each month, I can be precise: and so this total will be updated monthly, as well as the numbers of individual sponsors. Support is just fantastic!

COMING FUNDRAISING EVENTS

Haskins Garden Centre at Copthorne are incredibly supportive: they're donating the money from their Wishing Well throughout the summer, and during Melanoma Awareness Week June 14th to 22nd (we've cunningly arranged to include two entire weekends!) they're allowing us to collect outside the Garden Centre throughout each weekend. I'll be doing Hangng Basket demonstrations throughout Sunday June 15th as well.

They've also invited me to give a talk 'Kew Through the Looking Glass' on Friday May 16th there, starting at 7pm, £2 per ticket including free tea or coffee: tickets either direct from me, or from Haskins Customer Service desk. I was Assistant Curator at Kew for fourteen years: and it's lots of stories from 'behind the scenes'! Good fun!

We're also collecting outside Sainsbury's on Saturday June 14th.

May 25th I'll be at the Fatboy Sevens at Crawley Rugby Club (I used to coach Crawley for four years, way back in the eighties!), hoping to meet lots of old friends and persuading them to sign my sponsor form!

Keep watching this section!

TWELVE MONTHS DIARY

I woke up at 5.05 on August 28th, gazed at the ceiling, realised that today was my 71st birthday, and that it was time to start Twelve Months to Raise a Million, which has a nice ring about it. I'd been planning it for months. So I began to tell my friends (not straight away, because most of them were probably still in bed asleep, but about eight o'clock because I was pretty eager), because that's my normal way of making sure that there's no going back! I put down the telephone after the third or fourth call, and a cold shiver ran down me: because there really was no way of going back! I sat and thought about it over my breakfast: the 'million', of course, referred both to the number of sponsors and pounds sterling. That's- um- 33,334 people getting a 30 sponsor form filled up on my behalf: or, alternatively, 30 people each getting 33,334 sponsors. I decided that the former was the more likely.

Our objectives were to find a cure for malignant melanoma, raise awareness and make diagnosis more easily available. Melanoma is one of the Diseases of the 21st century, currently affecting 1 in 50 in Britain and with a very high death rate. Even worse, the incidence is doubling every ten years.

We wanted to fund major research projects: and it was necessary not merely to define these, but also to get the belief of those involved at the practical end that we could actually raise the money to do this! I had to believe so that they could believe!

The 'Challenge' for which we were inviting sponsorship was the trek rim to rim of the Grand Canyon: I'd already listed this on 7 7 70 (Seven Challenges in Seven Continents after the age of Seventy), and gained lots of sponsors, so these were the first on my list.

The Grand Canyon is one of my favourite places on earth. It is awesome (in the English, rather than the American, sense): when you stand on the North Rim and look across the fantastic landscape of barren canyons stretching as far as the eye can see to the South Rim, I am full of awe and wonder and a tingle of anticipation. You descend from the North Rim at 9,000ft down the North Kaibab Trail and cross the Colorado River at 2,000ft at Phantom Ranch, where the temperature might be as high as 130F. You can stock up on food and even get a night's sleep in the bunkhouse: and there's a Post Office, where we will get our specially produced post cards franked for our friends back home. Then you climb the Bright Angel Trail, through The Furnace where it might be even hotter and up the forty switchbacks of Jacob's Ladder, through Indian Gardens where you can grab a drink, and up to the South Rim at 8,000ft.

When you stand to draw a breath, the views are- well, indescribably beautiful and almost surreal. You can't take a bad photograph!

I can't cheat and go down on muleback, either, because they don't take you if you're over 55!

I also wanted to set that new record for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event, which I'd failed to do in New Zealand when I'd pushed George the Wheelbarrow from end to end of the north island (800 miles, 68 days) and where I'd only got 7,700 and got nowhere near the 10,000 gained by Dave Campos when he set a new absolute speed record on a motorbike. But at least the money that I'd raised had been the catalyst for the formation of the Melanoma Foundation of New Zealand, now a thriving national Charity.

Now, as long as there's a name and a postcode on the sponsor form, the amount doesn't matter: 5p, 50p, £1- or more! The important thing was that this 'Challenge' was, hopefully, sufficiently outlandish to attract the media, which was absolutely essential. We had to raise the menace of melanoma to top level attention!

We'd already got 290 sponsors: that's- um- 0.029% of my total already!

I contacted Martin Gore at the Royal Marsden: he had been Myfanwy's consultant, and he has been our constant adviser. We really wanted to fund a major practical research project there, at our major Cancer Hospital. A few days later he wrote back, telling me of a joint project with Cancer Research investigating a gene called BRAF, which they discovered had been damaged in over half the cases of melanoma. This damage not only induces melanoma, but also drives the disease once it has become established. So they are attempting to develop new therapeutic agents to target BRAF and determine if these can be used to treat the disease. This work involves basic scientists working at the bench and goes through to clinical studies in patients: and they have assembled a broad team of specialists to perform these studies. As he wrote, they are particularly excited about translating their basic know-how into clinical trials and thereby to develop new treatments for this devastating disease.

So that's one of the research projects that Twelve Months to Raised a Million will back.

I'd been carrying around an article by David Derbyshire in the Daily Mail of June 21st and had it laminated: it was about 'The 'golden bullet' that kills cancer'. 'Golden Bullet'. or 'Trojan Horse': the idea had been discussed for some time, and it was important to find out where such work was taking place in Britain, and whether financial support would be welcomed. He wrote 'A 'golden bullet' treatment for cancer that tracks down tumours before wiping them out with a blast of heat is to be tested on patients within weeks. The 'seek and destroy' technique uses an injection of microscopic glass spheres, coated with gold, which seek out potentially deadly cancers in the body. Once enough spheres have flocked to the tumour, doctors 'activate' them using a low energy beam of light. In tests, tumours have been totally destroyed.'

So I wrote to him, saying 'Tell me more' and 'Who's doing it?' and 'Where is it being done?'(in slightly more polite terms, of course): because this could be the second project that we would back.

We've already donated £20,000 to Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead (the 'home' of legendary wartime plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe and the famous 'Guinea Pigs', the often horrendously burnt airmen on whom he had operated) to fund the appointment of a specialist skin cancer nurse in their rapidly enlarging MASCU (Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit). She would also have an educational role: and we would be eager to fund similar units, or to boost this MASCU in my home town hospital here in East Grinstead. So there's a third project.

We'd already donated £23,000 to set up a laboratory at RAFT within Mount Vernon Hospital at Northwood, and donated a £15,000 Solar Simulator for work on sun damage to skin: we'd like to continue to support such work on protection and prevention. A fourth project! We could aim for £250,000 for each!

Before I looked for media support, I had to get the consent of those involved: so I dashed off eager letters and e-mails and sat back to await equally eager replies by return of post!

Doesn't work like that, Harry! My letters must have sounded like the product of a deranged mind. A million sponsors? A million pounds? Amanda Heaton, Fundraising and Community Development Manager at the Royal Marsden, laughed nervously when we spoke on the telephone: she confirmed the interest of Martin Gore. I promised not to bother her unecessarily: she seemed relieved.

September 18th

I'd been in touch with a great guy named Steve Simms for the past month. My book 'The Slowest Pilgrim' (the story of my 500 mile, 38 day fund raising walk along the Pilgrim Trail to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain) had been on sale at Waterstones in East Grinstead for months: and I'd wandered in to the shop to check whether it was on the Remaindered (Half Price) Table, in which case I'd have bought up the lot to avoid the social stigma of friends finding it there.

Fortunately, it wasn't: in fact, it was on the Books Recommended shelf behind the door. Locally, it was the next best thing to winning the Pulitzer Prize! It was right next to Coming Home by Steve Simms: the hilarious tales of a 'lost' backpacker who is finally 'coming home'. He's a local man: I browsed throught his book, bought it (after all, we local authors have to maintain solidarity!): and it's a really great 'read'! So I e-mailed him (found the address inside the cover!): and we'd arranged to meet up. He'd also read my book, liked what we're doing, and had a 'Charitable Proposition' to put to me! Intriguing! Well, apart from still playing in goal for Turner's Hill FC at the age of fifty something, he's also a well known musician locally: and next day Marian and myself joined him and friends for a great meal at his house (cooked by him, he's multi-talented!), followed by a 'jamming' session. I forebore to take part with my tribute to the Temperance Seven.

He suggested that he and his friends could organise a Live Gig at CJ's Cafe Bar in the High Street (the 'musical centre of life in East Grinstead'): and from the music played that night at Steve's, we knew that this would be a real winner! An audience of a hundred (easily get this number in to CJ's!), for a 'donation' of up to £10 a head, plus the other spin-offs, could be a mammoth fundraiser as well as generating immense publicity: and in February it would be bang in the middle of publicity for Twelve Months to Raise a Million!

Wow, Steve, that's fantastic! It's all updated on November 23rd: rush ahead to read all about it!

September 28th

I wanted to put a small 'team' together for the Grand Canyon trek: it had to be small, and tight knit, because you can't organise mass participation events in the Grand Canyon. First on the list, Sarah Nesbitt. We'd both done the 100kms of the Sahara race in March: her running, me walking. Her feet had been horrific by the finish: blistered, torn, bleeding and lacerated right down to the bone, but she'd still carried on! She had rightly been awarded a special trophy for her sheer courage and determination. She was the founder and organiser of the Teignmouth and Dawlish Women's Network Runnng Group: ladies who had taken up running from a background of no activity, and she'd done a fantastic job. The group, thanks to Sarah, had held a sponsored 5km run for 16 ladies and 2 dogs in the summer, and raised £160.00 for Myfanwy's Charity.

So I e-mailed to her saying 'How about coming to the Grand Canyon in September for the rim to rim trek?' We'd discussed it briefly in the Sahara during one of the long desert evenings, so it probably didn't come as a complete surprise: but it must still have been a nasty shock, just when she was hoping that I'd forgotten this conversation. I mentioned that we'd all go on to Las Vegas for a couple of days after that: the world centre for kitsch and bad taste, but which everybody must visit at least once in their life! I also reassured her that Marian would be with us, as baggage master, taking the bags round from rim to rim on the bus whilst we walked!

October 1st

I sat toying with my home made muesli and fat free organic yoghourt, listening to Terry Wogan. An item on the news described a guy in America, Russell 'Rock Bottom' Byass (aged 43) who'd just set up a new Guinness World Record for Most Skims (Skips) for a Stone Across Water. He'd managed an impressive 51 at French Creek on the Allegheny River 70 miles north of Pittsburgh. Wow! he'd smashed the previous World Record of 40 by Kurt 'Mountain Man' Steiner out of sight! The report continued that his achievement was all the more remarkable because he only started skimming eight years ago while walking his dog! Standing at 6ft 2ins and weighing 18 stone, he apparently cuts an imposing figure and has already turned professional! I record this without comment. Guinness World Records, after painstaking checking the concentric circles made by each stone after each skip on the video films, had taken a couple of months to verify his World Record: but now, he was set for the Olympics (well, they're adding new sports every time!), and we might have the chance to see him and Mountain Man on the Serpentine in 2012! The secret, he thought, was in the lazy under arm flick that he'd perfected over the years. Must try it myself, I thought: my own record, at the age of about nine by the seaside at Torquay, had only been four or five. I think that my father had beaten this, to set the Townsend Family Record.

But it made me realise that I'd better try to get my own planned record for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event accepted by the Guinness Book of Records. I got on to their website: it terrified me to realise the stringency with which record attempts are assessed, no matter how bizarre (like the chap in Australia who'd swallowed a nineteen inch sword and suspended a forty pound bag of potatoes from the hilt for five seconds)

I read that, each year, they receive around 65,000 record-related enquiries from people who want to set or break records. Due to the number of queries they receive, it stated, it usually takes between four and six weeks to reply. although sometimes it may take longer given the sheer volume of claims and queries they receive. However, they added consolingly, if you need an answer quicker than this, they are able to offer their Premium Fast Track and Fast Review Services. Turns out that this costs £300, whereas the normal request is free: and if you pay for an on-site adjudicator, you can be presented with your framed Guinness World Record certificate on the spot. What if you fail to set a record? I guess the adjudicator slips silently away and puts a family photo in the frame instead on the way home. I could book an adjudicator, if I wished, provided that I paid his fares, meals and accomodation and a fee: don't know if he'd like to rough it down in the Grand Canyon, though! I'll think about it: perhaps he'd just want to sit down with a cup of coffee in my kitchen and count up my sponsors. You know,'354,155, 354,156, 354,157.. oops, spilt the coffee on the certificate. Now where was I? 1,2,3,4,5.....'

Anyway, I registered as a potential World Record Breaker and submitted details of the hoped-for record. It required a date.

I'd been a bit laid back about the date up until then: 'Oh, in September 2008' I'd murmured vaguely when people asked. Thinking about it, that probably conveys the wrong impression, as if people were mobbing me in Sainsburys asking when the great day was to be. The number of such enquiries had probably been in single figures: actually, one. I entered September 10th and 11th on the computer: and once again, I was irrevocably committed. I went away and updated this website: that meant booking accomodation at Canyon Village on the north rim on September 8th and 9th. Better get on with it.

Now I'll settle back for four or six weeks (might be longer!) and hope for a positive response from Guinness: the vast majority of applications, I read, were turned down! That didn't sound too good, either!

October 2nd

I'd been harbouring ideas about pushing George (the Wheelbarrow) round the London Marathon: he'd been rejected by The Great South Run, but I really felt that exposure through the streets of London would do Twelve Months to Raise a Million a lot of good, and would hopefully boost the number of sponsors. The London Marathon is great fun, as well: I've run it twice, and enjoyed every minute! So I dashed off a letter to the organisers, asking if George and I could take part in 2008 (and why!) and, of course, promising to keep to the back of the field and not to impede other runners. I must admit that it did seem a little unlikely that I would be pushing for a place as the leaders raced up the Mall: but I thought it best to reassure the organisers on this point

October 9th

I'd spent the summer developing my garden, turing an overgrown wilderness into a super rock garden and colourful shrub border, and then ejecting the battered benching from my conservatory. I then used commercial racking to build my own 'super benches' on wheels, and house and propagate my wonderful plant collection: and it had left me no time to train. In fact, I'd done no exercise (apart from this manual variety) since returning from the Sahara in March: and it showed! Cunningly angled mirrors in the en-suite in Santiago (not got there yet, read about it on October 11th!) gave me an all-round views of the body unbeautiful (with the emphasis on round): and unforgiving scales when I got home showed 15 stone 8 lbs! I was at last a 100kg monster: two stone overweight. Something had to be done, if I was to disprove the idea that I was a fat man trapped in a thin man's body.

October 11th

I'd been away for five days with Marian in Santiago de Compostela, visiting a friend who lived near there and who was celebrating (with her husband, of course!) their 10th Wedding Anniversary: and it had also given me the chance to soak up the atmosphere of that wonderful city which I'd sadly failed to do when I'd finished my 38 day, 500 mile walk on the Pilgrim Trail four years earlier. I wrote a book about it, The Slowest Pilgrim, about this, the most unsuccessful fundraising walk ever: but it had been a fantastic experience!

I'd reached Santiago about midday that day in August 2003, visited the wonderful Cathedral, obtained my certificate (Compostela), soaked up the atmosphere with fellow pilgrims in the Praza de Praterias, taken the obligatory photographs, booked into the forbidding Seminario high on the hill for that night, enjoyed my last Pilgrim Meal of the walk at Casa Manolo's, listened to the music of the Tuna in the cloisters of the Praza de Obradoiro: but in the middle of all this, I'd made the big mistake of wandering in to the travel agents and asking the best way to get back to England!

'There's a cheap flight going back to Heathrow tomorrow morning' said the lady behind the desk, brightly: 'and what's more, it's half price to Pilgrims!' Wow! I could have kissed her on the spot: but I realised that this might not necessarily further my cause. Nevertheless, at 8.00am next morning, I was strolling up the hill towards the bus station to get a bus to the airport.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the cheap flight, even with Pilgrim concessions, cost (in retrospect, hindsight is a wonderful thing!) roughly twice what I'd paid a week ago on October 4th: and I'd missed out on so much with this hurried return! But I wasn't too disapointed, because I didn't realise this until about a month ago! Anyway, last week we'd enjoyed a coach trip to Finisterre, the end of the world in mediaeval times, wandered round this fantastic city, listened to the Tuna again, and had a nostalgic 8E Pilgrim Meal (Menu peregrino) in Casa Manolo. Wonderful Galician potato soup, just like four years ago. The main course was undeniably a real fish, as well: it gazed up at me accusingly,and you could see that it had recently done lots of strenuous swimming, it was a mass of muscle and bone. Still, the cornetto in it's paper wrapping was nourishing: and all around were the happy Pilgrims, who'd shared in this wonderful experience of walking the Camino.

But sadly, I felt an outsider, as I had done when I stood watching the joyous Plgrims embracing happily in the Praza de Obradoiro. I wanted to shout 'Hey, I was a Pilgrim four years ago! I've got my Compostela at home to prove it!'. But I knew that they wouldn't understand: so I kept my mouth shut. I bought the obligatory fridge magnets and souvenirs: unfortunately, my fridge magnet from Finisterre fell on to the floor and broke in to three pieces last night! Wonder if it was trying to tell me something? Never mind, a bottle of superglue later, and you could hardly see the join!

Marian and myself also strolled up to the Seminario, where I'd spent my last night in Santiago after the walk, for a nostalgic visit. Good job she's an enthusiastic walker. The Seminario stood high on the hill, as grim and forbidding as ever. We couldn't find the way in: we circled it several times, collecting a small team of Pilgrims, a hot and dusty middle aged lady bearing the traces of weeks of hard walking, and a tired young couple from (probably) Germany. I informed them that I'd walked the Camino three years earlier,and stayed in this very place. They didn't appear over impressed. Wait a minute: there was a sort of telephone beside the iron gate giving access to the spacious grounds. 'How could we get in?' I asked a multi lingual lady on the other end.

'It's closed' she replied. I could hear the eager shouts of children at play in the grounds, running up and down the stone steps. 'When does it open?' I persevered. Turned out it doesn't, except (possibly, as I found out later) during school holidays. 'Where's the nearest refuge?' I asked on behalf of my eager team. 'Monte del Gozo'. 'That's about four miles back!' I said: but the clck at the other end announced that the interview was terminated. I turned to inform my team: but they'd already lost interest, and were wandering back down hill to look for a cheap hotel. Like many world leaders, my position had become untenable as soon as we had a minor setback.

Ah well! I went in to the Tourist Information Office in Santiago to tell them the Seminario was closed. They seemed sympathetic in a rather distant sort of way.

I sat at my computer this morning, having got home to England, catching up on my hundreds of unsolicited e-mails: principally, young ladies from Russia eager to visit me, casinos canvassing my support, computer firms with cheap computers, gentlemen eager to lend me money without any surety (just wanted my own banking details!), 'universities' equally eager to give me a degree without any work on my part (at a price!), shops with surplus Rolex replica watches and pharmacists with sure fire remedies without prescription for bedtime medical problems.

Sarah Nesbitt had replied on October 9th. My e-mail had arrived on her birthday (must try to remember!), and she'd taken a few days to consider it as requested. It must have come as something of a bolt out of the blue: and the answer was yes, she'd love to come. More details, please! The Las Vegas bit appealed particularly! She was doing the Snowdonia Marathon in about three weeks time, she said, so she had to dash off to train! She reckoned, like me, that the Grand Canyon trek also demanded lots of work in the gym. Yes, I thought: this was my own 'wake-up call'.

Wait a minute! Here was a form for me to complete from Guinness! Better get on with it straight away.

The telephone rang. It was Ian Wilson from Cancer Research, to discuss the practical melanoma research projects in which they were involved. These included the BRAF faulty protein on which Professor Richard Marais was working, and also the Golden Bullet about which David Derbyshire had written in the Daily Mail. This work is being done in Norwich by Professor David Russell, and basically centres round gold coated nano- particles which bind with cancer cells and which will hopefully be destroyed by heat. He's sending me details: from this initial conversation, it sounds like the projects with which we'd love to get involved.

October 12th

I had a message from Jenny Parnwell, whose daughter Jay (Julie-Ann) had died aged only 34 on December 19th 2001 from malignant melanoma. Jay had been the best friend of the wonderful Carolyn Pettett in Burgess Hill, who is one of life's genuinely nice people, and who had held a fantastic 12 hour Cream Tea during Melanoma Awareness Week this past June to raise money (more than £300.00!)

Jenny's son, and a friend, recently completed the Fowey triathlon as another fundraiser. They invited me to take part, as well: but after the inital euphoria, I realised that swimming across the river using breaststroke with my head high above water (don't like to get my hair wet!) didn't really equip me for such a Challenge.

So I graciously declined the invitation: and happily, the organisers managed to put this disappointment behind them and persevere with the race. The boys did well and raised almost £2,000.00.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Jenny lives in Fowey: and she was eager to get involved with publicising Myfanwy's Charity, and our objectives, in Cornwall and particularly at the Eden Project. This is one of my Must Visit places, especially as a committed horticulturist (fourteen years as Assistant Curator of Kew Gardens!): and I'd never been to the Eden Project. I give lots of talks about plants (and also about my walk with George the Wheelbarrow from end to end of the north island of New Zealand, but that's immaterial in this context!): and each time, people would ask me if I'd visited the Eden Project.

I would reply that I wanted it to mature first: but I don't think that they believed me. I didn't even believe it myself, after all! Now, not only could we get such a magnificent place involved, but I could at last fulfil a long held visit-wish. Might even buy a fridge magnet, as well.

Jenny would set the wheels in motion: we would meet with Carolyn at a pub in Burgess Hill in ten days time (the Friars Oak, at noon, if you want to drop by and buy me a drink) and discuss details and how to go about it. I telephoned Alan and Brenda Warwick in Liskeard, two of my oldest friends from Felbridge Junors rugby days in East Grinstead, and who had moved to Cornwall some years before: my call took them by surprise, and they agreed to let us visit for three nights. I offered to take them out to dinner that first night, Big Mac and chips perhaps (I'd recently read SuperSize Me!), but they un-reluctantly turned it down.

Must start getting fit: I'll probably start tomorrow

October 17th

I wandered in to the Dorset Arms in East Grinstead for a coffee and a chat with anybody from the Chamber of Commerce who'd come in for the informal Wednesday lunch time get together. Dale Bulbrook, who designed and manages our website out of the kindess of his heart, was there: so was Nick Castiglione, of Wealden Marketing. Actually, he is Wealden Marketing!. Any ideas for media and business contacts? I enquired during a lull in conversation. Ideas pour from Nick like a fountain: I've never met anybody with so many ideas and contacts!

'How about the Business for Breakfast meeting next Tuesday at the Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Park?' he suggested. 'Give Nick Starbuck a ring, and get an invitation. Lots of fantastic business contacts.'

I rang Nick: great idea, he said! £10 a head, and bring lots of business cards. Start? Oh, registration takes place at 6.45: get there a bit early, if you can. I clutched the telephone table, and gulped. '6.45? That'll be fine: and thanks!'

That meant getting there (only four miles from home) by 6.30: so I'd better get up and shave by 5.30! Were there two 5.30s in the day after all? It seemed unlkely, I confess: but Nick seemed fairly firm on that point, so I decided to go along with it.

October 18th

Better get some proper cards, I thought, ready for Tuesday: couldn't really dish out leaflets. I strolled into a local printers and sketched out what I wanted Four colours (including our logo and slogan, The Darker Side of the Sun. Couldn't be absolutely precise on the cost: but they thought, about £100 plus for 250 cards.

I gulped and rang my friend Richard Denn, who is a skilled engineer and innovator and an imaginative designer on the computer, and who'd translated my original idea for a logo into our really trim image of The Darker Side of the Sun. No problem: just sketch it out, and drop it in. Unfortunately, the third and fourth place play-off for the Rugby World Cup was about to start, so I had to delay until about 11pm. I took it round to Richard's half an hour later: seemed a little late to disturb him, so I pushed it furtively through the letter box and tiptoed quietly away.

October 19th

Telephone call at 9.45. Richard had not only done them: he'd already pushed them through my letter box without my hearing! They were just fantastic: better than I'd ever dared to imagine, and not only that, a couple of dozen were laminated as well. He is a real star: I hurried round with a bag of windfall Bramley apples!

If I hadn't been so busy, I'd have started training: I settled for a trip to Sainsburys and a walk around town.

October 20th

It was the eighth anniversary of Myfanwy's death: a very sad day, and I took flowers to her grave.

I also had a letter from the organisers of the London Marathon. Unfortunately, they wrote, wheeled objects are not allowed on the London Marathon course due to health and safety. They continued on a somewhat censorious note: 'This is stated on the race entry form which says that all entrants must compete on foot as there are no wheeled objects allowed on the course'. Must have missed it in the excitement: but I take their point.

Their reply was dated October 10th: they either had an enormous out-tray, which could only be put in the post when entirely full, or the Postal Strike was really gripping Central London, because I didn't receive their letter until today, the closing date for 2008 entries. Therefore, it seemed improbable that I could satisfy their closing wish for me to enjoy the best of luck with my entry to next year's London Marathon: but it was nice of them to say so.

October 23rd

Up at 0500 ready to shower and shave for Business at Breakfast. Everywhere was dark: I crept out of the house, closing the door with a soft click!, for fear of waking the sleeping neighbourhood. The car was frozen up: it shimmered in the moonlight. Couldn't remember where I'd put the de-icer, either. So I revved up the engine enthusiastically: I could hear duvets being pulled up over ears all around me. So much for being worried about being early for the meeting: I'd become (as usual) the last to arrive. Fortunately, they hadn't started breakast without me: a couple of cups of coffee later, and some cautious networking (I'd never networked before!), and I was shovelling down a full English preparatory to giving my 60 second presentation on Myfanwy's Charity. The information was received in silence. Turned out that most of the people that I'd wanted to meet weren't there this week: school holiday holidays. But, after breakfast, I was able to circulate and talk to the other breakfasters, distribute a few cards and leaflets (didn't sell any books, though!), and plan to go back in a fortnight with real hope of making beneficial contacts.

I was a bit handicapped, though, because one 'networker' attached himself to me like a limpet, intent on telling me how Myfanwy's Charity could benefit from his services. I'm not quite sure what these services were, but I think that they had to do with telephones. Apparently, if I paid £25 and then persuaded ten of my contacts to avail themselves of the services of his company within thirty days, I'd get my £25 back! Also, a small percentage of their expenditure. Well, you can't go too far wrong with that, can you? I hope he's lost my card, which he wrested from me.

I was back home by 0930, in time for a light breakfast. After all, it was almost two hours since my first breakfast: and having got up at 0500, it was more along the lines of a mid-morning snack.

I couldn't think of any reason why I shouldn't start to get fit right now: I laced on my Sahara shoes, put on sensible corduroys, and sidled out of the house pretending that I was just going for a stroll, nothing to do with 'getting in the miles'. Down the road, and on to the old railway track to Crawley Down. Who should I meet within a mile but Phil Bowers, a top referee from my rugby days and still looking embarrassingly fit. 'Off training?' he enquired. 'Oh no, just out for a bit of a stroll' I replied unconvincingly: and then settled down to bore him for fifteen minutes with rugby reminiscences. The eyes of his dog glazed over: it sat down with a sigh, thoroughly bored, after a comprehensive investigation of the hedgerows and another passing dog. Phil offered to take a sponsor form round the Referee's Society. My first such offer! Only another 33,333 sponsor form 'managers' wanted (always presuming that Phil got the maximum thirty!) I'd already mentioned it to a few other people, but they'd just said 'Put me down' and then escaped.

I'd got to be a lot more convincing than that. Once the details of the research projects were confirmed (and I was by now in deep consultation with Ian Wilson, of Cancer Research UK), I'd start taking up commercial contacts before everybody was overtaken by the two month Christmas period.

This was to be my last sponsored event: and I'd got to aim for the maximum. A million sponsors, a million pounds, maximum media cover.

Even walking was hard. Only 4.5 miles: and by the last mile, I was really flagging. It was getting dark as I walked up the sloping road towards home: and I hoped that nobody had seen me. I set it all down in my training diary: a couple of weeks steady walking, then back to the gym. But I'll tell you all about it,anyway.

October 26th

Dave Gower-Rudman arrived to overnight. He's a great runner, who'd done the 80 Miles South Downs Way Run six times (including a third place one year) This was the (non-stop) race over the South Downs from Petersfield to Eastbourne that Myfanwy and myself had organised for sixteen years: and it had become a cult event, drawing up to 500 runners every year from around the world to suffer for a day, a night, and (in some cases) most of a further day. What's the record? Well, since you ask, it's 9 hours 37 minutes by Steve Moore, but he was, after all, third in the World 100kms Race round about that time!

Dave and his family now live in New Zealand: but every couple of years, he comes back to visit more family and friends and to take in a few races. He'd landed the previous weekend,suffering from flu: so, instead of running a half marathon that weekend, he'd settled for six miles or so. Tomorrow he was running the Beachy Head Marathon (really tough, I've done it myself three times) over the South Downs: then it was straight off to Dorset for a tough half marathon the following day. Might do a half marathon the following weekend, he thought, before jetting off home to New Zealand

October 27th

Up at 5.00am so that Dave could have his porridge and honey and get down to Eastbourne for a 9.00am start. He'd brought his own porridge, in case it was not on my regular menu (it wasn't, as it happened, so it proved what a forward thinker he is) and made a bucketful. I offered him a dish: he pursed his lips, and shook his head, but brightened up when he saw a large casserole dish which he proceeded to fill to the brim. I had a small bowl full myself, as well. Delicious, must try it again. 06.20, and I guided him out of town and set him off along the road to Eastbourne.

October 28th

My sister's birthday! I sang Happy Birthday To You, slightly off-key, down the telephone. She waited patiently for me to finish: she's been through this sort of thing before.

Marian and myself had to go to the Friar's Oak pub in Burgess Hill as you might remember, to meet Jenny Parnwell, who was masterminding the approach to the Eden Project, for the first time. Carolyn Pettett had organised a get together for Jenny's grandchildren (the two daughters of Julie-Ann, her daughter and Carolyn's best frend, who had sadly died of melanoma six years previously). It was a very emotional party, yet also joyful as Jenny and her grandchildren met their friends for the first time for so many years. 34 people, families and children, thronged the restaurant. We didn't stay too long: it was a very private party, sad yet joyful at the same time: but it had been important to meet Jenny to introduce ourselves and to discuss (even briefly) our approach to the Eden Project.

October 29th

I telephoned the Eden Project. Turned out that my trump card, Sue Minter, an old Kew friend who had become Head of Horticulture there, was no longer a trump card. She'd left a few months earlier. I explained briefly to the lady on the telephone what I wanted: I was passed on to an answer phone where I stumbled through my unconvincing message. I'm never at my best on answer phones. I tried again later: still no luck, got a different answer phone.

Jolly good job, as it turned out. Jenny rang. She was already home and she'd already been busy with her own friends and contacts. She is a very capable lady, a fantastic organiser: and the best thing that had happened all day was my being unable to contact anybody myself!

She would plan everything: and we'd keep in touch by telephone during the run-up to our visit next week.

So I went out for a long walk.

October 31st

Another Breakfast meeting: this time at Reigate! That's the third time in a week that I've got up at 5.00am. I hope it's not habit forming. I strolled in to the Golf Club: and within seconds, the Human Limpet (he gets everywhere!) had once more attached himself! Next person with whom I spoke turned out to be a printer, really nice guy named Paul Paine from In-Press: what's more, he lives in East Grinstead. I sat down for breakfast: even better than Effingham, it had two slices of really greasy fried bread, something about which I fantasise regularly! The chap on the other side was Simon Vane Percy, of Communication Consultants (PR to you and me!) Vane Percy and Roberts: and again, he lived really close in Lingfield. So, as a contact building exercise, it could have been just what I wanted.

I came home and had the obligatory toast and ginger jam, to stave off any potential pangs of hunger: then I obliterated my 200 or so spam e-mails, and was soon off to the Chamber of Commerce lunch time get together at the Dorset Arms. I was welcomed with open arms.

Actually, nobody really wanted to talk to me, but it just so happened that my arrival made a total of 17 and, apparently, set a new record for Most People To Attend An Informal Wednesday Lunchtime Meeting of East Grinstead Chamber of Commerce At The Dorset Arms! So I do have my uses after all! I managed to squeeze in between two ladies: one of them turned out to be a colleague of the Human Limpet, smaller but equally committed. Her eyes lit up with proselytising zeal! She promptly began an in-depth presentation about the potential benefits of a £25 investment. Fortunately, in mid presentation, she suddenly realised that it would be a good idea to dash off to feed her parking meter: and allied to steely determination on my part, I once again escaped unscathed. And I still don't know what the Human Limpets are selling!

But whilst the Human Limpet was away doing intensive meter feeding, I met a great chap there, Malcolm Rose, who is a business consultant and, would you believe it, Chairman of a Charity for fibromyalgia. If I wanted to run promotional ideas past anybody, to get an unbiassed opinion, he said that he'd be very happy to act as a sounding board for an hour or so.

Perhaps things are coming together: and when I got home, there was an e-mail from Ian Wilson from Cancer Research setting out more precise wording of the research projects that we are thinking of supporting to consider adding to the website. So, another step forward!

November 6th

We received a donation of £160.00 from Peter Kohn, who used to go to school with Myfanwy at Ashbourne Gramar School near Derby, and his wife Trish from visitors to their beautiful garden at Kerrachar, near Kylesku in the Scottish Highlands, under the Scotland's Gardens Scheme. They're great supporters, and over the past four years have donated almost £800.00.

November 7th

Marian and myself set off for the Eden Project. We were to stay with Alan and Brenda Warwick, long time friends from Felbridge Juniors days, who'd 'emigrated' to Cornwall a few years ago: and this was our chance to catch up. Alan told me that he did the journey in five hours. I was somewhat dubious about this: his big car against my Peugeot 106, which clicked up it's 120,000 miles during the return journey. I celebated by pouring oil gently into the engine: it purred in satisfaction.

Turned out Alan might have been right: and if we hadn't stopped at a Little Chef for personal relief and a meal, we'd have done the 247.5 miles with twenty minutes to spare within the five hour target! 53 miles an hour average: not bad for an S reg Peugeot! Perhaps I should let the manufacturers know: they might take her back and have her stuffed and mounted, and exchange her for a top of the range model with a double bed and spa. Or not.

Alan and Brenda live in a fantastic house, perched high on the hill at Liskeard and overlooking mile after mile of Bodmin Moor,little fars and fields stretching like a patchwork quilt in to the distance. Not so long ago, it hadn't been a fantastic house: but Alan and Brenda had worked their socks off and now it was wonderful!

November 8th

We spent the day at the Eden Project: what a wonderful concept by Tim Smit. First, he'd made a fortune in the popular music business: then he'd restored the gardens at Heligan not far from St Austell. The Lost Gardens of Heligan soon became a Mecca for gardeners everywhere: gardens of perfection, as they used to be!

Around this time, between 1996 and 1998, a group of people (visionaries, if you like!) gathered in pubs, hotels, private houses, offices and even motorway service stations to talk about an idea- to create a place like nothing anyone had ever seen before: a place that explored human dependence on plants and the natural world: a place that might just make a difference. They called it Eden: and now, less than ten years later, all the profits, from the entrance ticket to the sandwiches you eat and the items that you buy, go to the Eden Trust to further it's educational and environmental aims. You can become a Friend of Eden, if you like: lots of people are, and you'll be in good company!

Where did they build it? Well, where better than down at the tip of Cornwall: and they built this wonderful global garden in a a disused china clay pit: a pit that had no soil, no level ground, and was fifteen metres below the water table!

I won't go on: if you want to find out more, visit www.edenproject.com and then jump in to your car and go and find out all about it for yourself. You'll get this fantastic first view of what look like a set of half a dozen huge white plastic golf balls: the biomes, and you won't be able to wait to get down there as quickly as you can! It's all fantastic!

It's one of the Gardening Wonders of the World: and Tim Smit had masterminded this in less than ten years! I was pleased to find that one of the original two Horticultural Directors had been my former boss when I was Foreman at the Herts Institute of Ag. and Hort. at St Albans some forty years ago, Peter Thoday. No wonder he and Tim had hit it off so well: they were both cast in the same live wire visionary mould!

The Big Lottery Fund has just put up an award of £50 million to be granted to a single inspirational project as part of 'The People's £50 million contest': and one of the six shortlisted projects is The Edge, the next evolution of Eden!

Votes nationally take place in early December: and do you know what, I reckon The Edge will win, telling the story of people, animals, civilisations and plants living literally on The Edge!

The Eden Project is just fantastic!

We celebrated our visit with a baked potato: our third within three days.

We went back to Alan and Brenda's for dinner (it used to be supper, when I was a boy: high tea was only on Sundays, and dinner was what they now call lunch. It's all very confusing). We hoped it wouldn't be baked potato: it would have been difficult to whip up the necessary enthusiasm. Fortunately it was delicious lasagne: and I managed to stifle any worries about my expanding waistline.

We were discussing Twelve Months to Raise a Million: suddenly Alan said 'We'll come and do the driving, and act as the support team'. Just like that. Marian was delighted: she'd been worried about loading all the bags on to the bus for the 215 mile drive rim to rim whilst we walked down and up. She'd been even more worried about getting them off the bus and trying to manhandle them to the hotel!

We sat and discussed details: ideally, fly to Phoenix, pick up the minibus, hotel that night and then drive to Canyon Village on the North Rim for two nights on September 8th and 9th before the trek over the next two days. Then we'd have an extra day at Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim, getting the special commemorative postcards franked (didn't I tell you about these? I'll get round to it later) before we went off to Las Vegas for three nights. Then Alan and Brenda would set off for a few days sightseeing with the minibus: whilst we would make our way back to England. Another piece of the jigsaw was falling in to place!

We slept well that night: a large sherry (wine glass full!) and a couple of glasses of good red wine might have helped!

November 9th

We set off early for the Eden Project to meet Jenny Parnwell for our meeting with Andrew Ormerod and Ian Martin at the Eden Project. Didn't want to be late: and we knew exactly where we were going, didn't we? Foundation Building, opposite the Visitor Centre. Jenny was waiting: turned out that 'opposite the Visitor Centre' meant 'if you're standing outside the Visitor Centre, you can just about see it on the opposite rim of the clay pit'! Never mind: they sent a minibus round to collect us!

It was great to meet Andrew and Ian: and they brought Sally Hobson in, the nurse at the Eden Project. Briefly, we wanted their interest in what we were doing and hoped that they would help us to promote awareness of melanoma and the danger of over exposure to the sun. This would be fantastic: and so important to get this information out to the literally millions of people who visited the Eden Project.

It all seemed very positive: and we left with Ian to look at the working model of The Edge, a wonderful visionary project. We had a long chat with Jenny, who is so committed to what we are doing: then she went to carry on her voluntary work with The Friends (it's thanks to an army of Friends that the Eden Project can remain financially viable), doing- well, what Friends do!

We went out with Alan, Brenda and Brenda's dad George to the pub at St Neot for a celebratory pub grub meal: and would you believe it, the village choir turned up in their choir sweaters! Turned out it wasn't just for our benefit, though: all the choirs in Cornwall were having a sing along that night in their local pubs collecting for Children in Need. The leader told us, with a strong Belfast accent (Belfast by birth, Cornish by choice), that 20,000 choir members throughout Cornwall wanted to raise £20,000, and take it up the following week to present to Terry Wogan on Children in Need night.

November 10th

Back home: an almost traffic free route enabled us to beat the record by fifteen minutes, and even with a forty minute stop for creature comforts at Fleet Services we managed door to door in four minutes over five hours. I wish I'd bought a small bag of chips at Fleet Services, rather than a large one: we'd have knocked five minutes off that time, easily! Never mind, 55mph in driving time: and what's more, we'd kept to the speed limits all the way!

We dropped in to Sainsbury's on the way home, partly to stock up and partly to set their mind at rest. I go in almost every day: and I was a bit worried that, not having seen me for five days, they might have sent somebody round home to see if I was alright. I said brightly to my regular lady on the till 'Been away for a few days!'. 'Oh, have you', she said disinterestedly. So much for customer loyalty, I thought.

I browsed through my mountain of e-mails. Nothing much there- wait, there was one from Guinness!

Amanda Sprague, from the Records Management Team, was the bearer of bad news. She told me that they were unable to accept my recent record proposal 'Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event'. She seemed very apologetic about it: but, speaking on behalf of their team, she informed me that they'd considered my proposal carefully but regretted that it was not something for which they were currently interested in listing a record. She added, consolingly, that they receive 60,000 enquiries a year from which only a small proportion are approved by their experienced researchers to establish new categories. I thought that I detected a hint of sadness in her reply; perhaps she really regretted being forced to answer in this way?

But, having administered the soft soap, she slipped quickly into top gear and informed me, in no uncertain terms, that 'As your record application has not been accepted, Guinness World Records is in no way associated with the activity relating to your record proposal and we in no way endorse this activity'.

She concluded, somewhat grimly, that 'If you choose to proceed with this activity then this will be of your own volition and entirely at your own risk'. Well, you can't say fairer than that, can you? No beating about the bush by Amanda. At the bottom of the page it stated that this message had been sent from an unmonitored email address. Replies will be discarded. It was right. Mine was.

November 13th

Another mountain of e-mails, including one from Sarah. She'd just completed the Snowdonia Marathon, a really difficult challenge, in the wind and the rain and come home with a medal and two black toe nails. Better than the Sahara, I told her: you could see the bone there! I suggested that she bought some black nail varnish and did the other eight toes: then nobody would know, even in sandals. She was probably glad to find me so supportive.

November 14th

I rang my ten year old granddaughter Hanna in the States and sang 'Happy Birthday to You'. I decided not to follow with a chorus of 'For she's a jolly good fellow' because she seemed to be getting a bit fidgety. Probably the excitement, I thought.

'Do you know who this is?' 'Yes, grandpa'. 'How?' I asked. She sighed tolerantly: 'Because my other grandpa already rang'.

She's having a sleepover party on Friday: unfortunately, only one of the invitees could attend, with another having to go home at 10pm. The other three had scratched: I suggested that she got another three off the bench, which she'd already thought about. She's pretty smart.

Then I went off to the Chamber of Commerce meeting. I sat talking with Charmaine, from Hallmark Travel: she offered to help us get good rates for the air travel, which would be fantastic.

The jigsaw is taking place; but we need Guinness on board.

Lee Quinn and John James O'Neill, as co-editors, have just brought out the first edition of a wonderful local glossy magazine, Meridian Sport: John was there, distributing a few freebies. We talked about rugby: and he suggested that I might like to contribute an article (or two?) about Felbridge Juniors rugby club, which I used to run, and which had become a legend in rugby circles. Not just locally, but world wide: in fact, from this small village on the Sussex and Surrey border, we'd become the first ever English club team of any age to tour New Zealand and in 1979, for good measure, we included Australia and Fiji on a five week World Tour. What's more, we'd had to raise all the money ourselves: as Myfanwy once said, to play for Felbridge you had to be not quite human!

Why had Felbridge finished, he enquired? Well, I left Kew Gardens, I said, to work for me: unwittingly, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (my employers) had subsidised junior rugby for sixteen years. It had also enabled me to work with plants, my passion: why plants are what they are fascinates me, and has occupied a large proportion of my waking hours since I was a child. Still does: that's why I'm buildng a 'supergarden' full of fantastic plants.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (yes, please, Harry!), these articles would be read by so many former Felbridge players and other sportsmen and a wonderful opportunity to publicise Twelve Months to Raise a Million locally: so, thank you, John.

I even got him to autograph a copy of Issue 1. Well, you never know, it might become a collectors item. Should I lay in a small stock? No. better not: might be a little OTT. He seemed a little embarrassed, and glanced round surreptitiously to see if anybody had noticed. Nobody had: he seemed relieved.

I bumped into Derek Blacknall: a legend, who had completed the Marathon des Sables ten years or so ago. It put my achievements into the shade: all I'd done was the 'softies version', the 100km of the Sahara. The Marathon des Sables was twice as long, and you had to carry all your food and a stove for cooking, all your clothing, and a sleeping bag. My race, they cooked a nice meal and carried your bags for you.

Anyway, he's just retired, he told me: and if he can help in any way, he will. Wow! I can think of lots of ways: like, what is he doing on September 10th and 11th next year.

Marian is going to help me to get fit: she's cutting back the size of my meals, because she'd found that putting her arms round me had become increasingly difficult.

November 15th

I received a great e-mail from Kirsty Yeoman, who is doing wonderful work for Myfanwy's Charity in Bristol. Sadly, her mother died from malignant melanoma: and she'd organised a summer of fundraising at work at Sun Alliance. Now she's contacted numerous local newspapers and radio stations about the Charity, trying to drum up awareness and publicising Twelve Months to Raise a Million. She's also aiming to give talks in local schools, planning ahead for next summer, and had contacted SCARF, a skin cancer Charity based near Bristol.

Her e-mail reminded me to contact the Eden Project again, thanking Andrew, Ian and nurse Sally for a really rewarding meeting last week. Like everybody else there, they are so committed to the work there: it was inspiring to meet them.

I hope that they will promote our message of awareness, and perhaps display a poster about the dangers of too much sun under our watchword The Darker Side of the Sun: because The Eden project does such fantastic work, and it is such an invaluable teaching centre for millions of people, with special emphasis on schoolchildren:and they do it in such an easy to understand way. Support there would be an enormous brick in the wall that we are building!

Ian Wilson, from Cancer Research UK, had been 'tidying up' the wording that we are putting on the website regarding the research projects that Twelve Months to Raise a Million will support. It's essential to get this on board before Christmas: because, with the support teams in place, we'll really 'go for it' in January, pestering the media at every level and continuing to do so until we get back from the Grand Canyon. I sent this on to Martin Gore at the Royal Marsden Hospital, our major adviser and Myfanwy's consultant, because above all we want to support this wonderful Cancer Hospital. Some of the research is being shared between there and Cancer Research UK: and this would make us very happy. We might even set up a research scholarship there: but that's just me thinking out loud, it's got to be sorted by careful negotiation. Watch this space!

November 20th

I posted my (second) application form to Guinness to see whether they would accept my application for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event to be accepted as a Guinness World Record. Perhaps I hadn't been sufficiently assertive first time? If the guy in Australia who'd suspended a forty pound bag of potatoes for five seconds from the hilt of a 19 inch sword that he'd swallowed could get his record accepted, I reckoned that I might have some luck with this second attempt.

Less than nine months before the Grand Canyon rim to rim: and I thought that it was about time that I got into more of a 'discomfort zone' by getting fit. Today, I booked an appointment with chiropracter and fellow Rotarian, Alan Smith, to make sure that the muscles were still capable of delivering: it was only thanks to him that I'd been able to take part in the 100km of the Sahara race in March, my last serious athletic venture: since then, I've vegetated. So, tomorrow, 12 noon, I'll put myself (literally) in his hands. I'll tell you more tomorrow!

Equipped with that knowledge, the following day (Thursday) I'll be back at the gym: again, for an assessment before I start to get fit.

Yesterday, Marian cut off my food supply (well, not all, of course, but a significant amount): her, 1,000 calories a day, amd me, 2,000!

I've got two stone to lose: 28 pounds in old currency, 13 kg in new!

There'll be a truce for Christmas, and for the New Year: nobody likes party poopers, holding up their hand to repel a third helping of Sainsbury's spicy mince pies with a smug self satisfied smile. Certainly not me: I'm very partial to them! And Christmas pudding: and turkey and stuffing: and... all sorts of tasty things.

Anyway, back to healthy eating. Lunch at Rotary today was certainly not going to make major inroads into my 2000 calories a day allowance: perhaps Marian had been threatening them behind my back. I munched a dry Ryvita (31 calories) during the afternoon. Dinner, like yesterday, was a nourishing tin of baked beans (liberally doused in tomato ketchup) on two slices of toast. Trouble is, it was two slices from a small loaf: and I could have done with two slices from a very big one. I noted that a slice of bread was worth about 100 calories: so I cut them thick, to get good value. As they were from a small loaf, I topped up with a lathering of Sunflower Spread (with Omega 3 and 6, which seemed too good an offer to resist).

Why do they put everything in 'grammes'? 35 calories for 10 grammes: why not talk in language that I understand, like 15 grammes for a knife full? I tried to get the maximum out of a 420 gramme tin of beans (332 calories, if you're interested) by licking the lid: I came close to infringing one of life's golden rules, 'Never lick a steak knife'!
I felt a little hungry by ten o'clock. What could I eat that provided lots of bulk but very few calories? A couple of shredded wheat seemed the answer. It wasn't my usual sort of meal: rather like eating a vaguely tasty crunchy wet haystack. What? 72 calories for each shredded wheat? I give up.

But enough of all this: I promise to try not to mention it again! It might be hard, but I'll try.

November 21st

I had a shower and washed my hair before I went to see Alan for my chiropractical. Turns out that my vertebrae are compacted, which means thigh power is low: and the major muscle group in the stomach could do with strengthening. So that's why my six pack isn't what I used to want it to be!

He recommended hanging from a tree every morning, as soon as I got up, to decompress the vertebrae (by the arms, of course!): or from the door. Well, I haven't got a tree of this sort: and if I wander through the woods in the early morning looking for something suitable from which to hang, it might attract the attention of the Samaritans and would certainly be noticed by the local dog walkers. I tried the kitchen door frame, but it creaked ominously and a few grains of plaster dribbled down onto my head. I settled for grasping the door frame in the corner and letting my body sag, feeling the waist and the legs drop, and putting pressure on the arms and back. I could certainly feel it pulling. Vague memories stirred of a system of exercising by pretending to push on a wall: was it called 'isotonics'? No, that's a sort of sports drink. Wait a minute, got it: it's 'isometrics'!

Anyway, I felt much better when I'd finished: now I must remember to do this with lots of door frames as I pass through. It's alright when I'm home alone, but not so good when I'm out.

I'll ask Alan about isometrics next Tuesday at Rotary.

November 22nd

The day of my fitness assessment. I presented myself at the gym at 1.30 for the scrutiny of Alex, who is (wait for it!) not only the British and European but also the World Junior Power Lifting Champion.

The results were- well, disappointing. It turned out that I was above average at sitting reading the newspaper and watching television(heart rate), and fantastic at taking a deep breath and breathing out (Peak Flow Rate, which means blowing as hard as you can through a cardboard tube with no apparent resistance). In fact, I was so good that he made me do it twice!

Body fat, at 26%, was above normal. 98.5 kg was to blame for this!

But worse was to come. Stamina was 'poor', based on my ability to ride a stationary bicycle very hard for six minutes against considerable resistance. I guess that this was because of my compressed vertebrae and poor six pack: and the fact that for eight months, since completing the 100km of the Sahara race in Tunisia, I had done precisely nothing. Now, I was a 'blob'!

Worse still, my blood pressure was high: 150 over 95 which, according to a reliable website, indicated a necessity for 'lifestyle changes'!

What should I do? I asked Alex.

'Lose weight and exercise more', was his succinct reply.

I mentally booked another test for the end of January. I didn't want anything in the 'red zone' then, even allowing for Christmas and the New Year.

I tried a little gentle rowing on the rowing machine. Two years ago, I'd 'rowed' a marathon on a rowing machine (3 hours 23 minutes) and been ranked third in the world in my age group (well, to be truthful, there were't actually many other contenders). Now, 500m was enough: I tried it twice, for confirmation. Yes, I'd been right first time.

So, bring on that lifestyle change! First, as advised for anybody with heightened blood pressure who plans to exercise more than a gentle stroll to the shops to buy a morning paper, I booked an appointment with the practice nurse at my doctors. Kathy runs marathons, so she understands. Bring on next Thursday!

I'd got to get the infrastructure right before anything else: it was a salutary lesson, but nothing that couldn't be remedied.

November 23rd

As you've read in my Diary on September 18th, Steve Simms had been beavering away, organising the Gig that we'd discussed that evening at his house: today he sent me the 'proof' of the advertising poster, and tickets! It is fantastic! Steve Simpson is to be the 'star;: he's a highly talented and versatile multi-instrumentalist, who's played with Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance Band, and with Roger Chapman and many more, and he has a great following.

Mary Leay (who used to live next door to us, and who Myfanwy encouraged as a young girl) is a highly acclaimed singer, formerly with 'Who will miss Mary?' She has a wonderful voice: as the Ministry of Sound commented, 'shimmering ethereal vocals'.

Local six string/slide guitarist Danny Bridle will also be performing: all in all, a great line-up.

It will be a fantastic evening: get the New Year over, and we will start publicising this great gig

November 29th

I went along to see Nurse Kath at the doctor's, to check out my blood pressure and cholesterol as suggested (half heartedly) by the gym last Thursday. I'd been using the gym every day since then, gradually coming to terms with activity again, and concentrating on the rowing machine and the step machine. As usual, I can't do things by halves: everything has to be a 'Challenge' or it's not worth doing. So I'm aiming for the Empire State Building Challenge before Christmas on the step machine: 104 floors. Try it yourself: I'd love to do the real thing there, perhaps one day I might! I'll file it away for future reference when I'm short of something to do.

Anyway, blood presssure was fortunately still high: I'd have felt a real mug if it had been normal! Kath is a marathon runner (did the Beachy Head marathon last month, of course) and was interested in the Grand Canyon: it's one of the treks that she'd like to do, and she also wants to visit Las Vegas, so she could be the third of the four members of the team. Her husband would come along in support, as well: there'd be more people ferrying the bags round by road than walking from rim to rim.

'Are you fasting?' she enquired. I glanced down at my generously curvy outlines. 'Well, I'm eating sensibly', I replied cautiously. 'No, no' she sighed, 'You can't eat for twelve hours before doing a cholesterol test'. So that part of the test can't be done before next Tuesday: 08.30! I'd put on weight, too, she said. Well, I could have told her that, couldn't I? I was going to ask her how, in that case, the mobile cholesterol test caravan worked that tested you for £10 in Sainsbury's Car Park from time to time: but I forgot until I was half way round the Farmer's Market. I don't imagine that all their clients had starved for the past twelve hours in eager anticipation of their impending visit: or perhaps they had, being super motivated.

I bought a loaf of Roman Army Bread from the Slindon Bakery stall instead. It was only about three times as expensive as Sainsbury's Wholemeal Loaf, as well. Apparently Roman Army Bread is made from organic spelt flour (what's 'spelt?'), olive oil and honey: the sort of items that Roman soldiers could come across 'on the road', said the baker. I ate a couple of slices for lunch when I got home: it was, sadly, a bit tasteless but I'm sure it was extremely nourishing. Spelt isn't high in calories, is it? I was a bit worried. I cut the rest up into thick slices and froze it.

I bought some printer paper on the way home: I stood beside a stack of Guinness Book of Records books, aiming at the Christmas market, waiting to pay. I could be in there next year, I thought! They were advertising a few significant recent records on their poster.

Apparently Leslie Tipton, of the USA, had set a new record of 57 seconds for Putting Six Eggs In To Eggcups Using Her Feet. Wow!

Jarrot Reid, also of the USA, had set a new record for Most Back Flips On A Push Scooter. He'd managed a scooter back flip, landing with both feet on the scooter, when travelling from a ramp at a height of 5.48m (18 ft)

That's only ONE back flip, isn't it? What do you do to beat the record? TWO back flips, landing on your head? Or ONE, from 5.49m?

December 4th

0830, and I presented myself at the surgery ready for the removal of blood for cholesterol testing. Having starved myself since the previous evening, as per instructions, I had imagined the flow of blood might be weakened: but no! It gushed out in a very satisfactory way. Appafrently, they weren't going to rush the sample straight to the laboratory for instant analysis: it would take a week, and if I liked to telephone then, I could have a 'telephone consultation' with the doctor.

December 12th

I braced myself for the 'telephone consultation'. A doctor with a chinese name and a strong Geordie accent came on the line. My cholesterl was 5.3. That's good, isn't it? No, not really: should be below 5. However, the 'ratio' (between what?) was 4.8: and it should be below 3.5. Furthermore, he said, my LDR was 3.5: and it should be below 3. Is it serious? Well, I was orange on his little graph: which gave me a 15% chance of a heart attack. I could live with that, I thought.

Anyway, he suggested a diet of reduced saturated fat, green veg., whole grain and oily fish: pretty much what I eat now, I said. He appeared to be getting tired of this conversation: he'd probably got lots of overeaters to deal with before lunch. Make a diary of what you eat, then talk to the practice nurse, and she'll give you a diet. I'll do this after Christmas and the New Year, I said. He cut the consultation short. I went and had a multi-seed bread (is that the same as wholemeal?) tomato and lettuce sandwich: in deference to the recent consultation. Would Roman Army Bread be better, I wondered? I doubt whether you saw many very fat Roman soldiers, nor would high cholesterol appear to have been a problem at the time for their travelling medical support team. I certainly don't remember it as having featured prominently in my Latin translations at school: and I had, after all, got Latin at GCE 'O'Level thanks to an inspired guess in the Latin to English translation section that 'elephas' might mean 'elephant'. Apparently, I was one of the few in my class to have got this right: but then, we weren't a really bright lot and it had been a choice of either Latin or Chemistry.

I omitted the cheese. Marian is going to buy me a book about cholesterol, to go with my road map of Great Britain and three tea towels, for Christmas.

December 15th

Haskins Garden Centre once again are allowing us to collect there: and we collected £151.97 as well as selling two books. Not bad! A young lady also came along and volunteered her services fundraising: better not mention her name, because smetimes even the best of intentions fall by the wayside, but it looks very promising.

The bad news of the weekend was hearing that the Eden Project had failed in their bid for the £50 million sponsorship for The Big Lottery Fund Award for their wonderful educational project (The Edge). The grant went instead to setting up a nationwide network of off-road cycle tracks and walking routes: but, do you know, I think that they are right! I haven't heard back from them yet, despite one or two gentle nudges, about supporting our campaign to raise awareness: but I guess they've other things on their mind!

I haven't heard back from Guinness, either.

December 16th and 17th

Two more days collecting at Haskins: thanks to The Dream Team of Marian, and Gordon Hyde, we raised the total to £380.87 as well as selling seven books in total. It was great to meet lots of old friends: I hadn't seen one of my old Felbridge players for more than 30 years, and one of his daughters has almost finished University! Very sobering.

Almost finished writing and sending my Christmas cards: they're piling up here, and lots of people have been really generous sending donations to Myfanwy's Charity, which is really wonderful.

Lots of collecting for the Rotary Club Christmas Charities around this time; the mobile Christmas tree is towed along complicated routes through the town, with Christmas Carols blasting out, and Father Christmas distributing sweets to any children whose parents bring them to the door, eyes wide in wonder (the children's, not Father Christmas'!) What are these Charities, we're often asked: well, we're trying to make Christmas better for old people who've got nobody and children who've got nothing. It sets your feet back firmly on the ground.

I'm understandably paranoid about moles on the body that 'do things': and I'd been sent to Queen Victoria Hospital to have one of mine removed from the lower abdomen, as a precaution after following my own advice (Do it now! Not next week: now!). Thankfully, especially around East Grinstead, they take such things seriously: and I hope that this attitude will prevail increasingly not just nationwide, but worldwide. December 21st is the scheduled date.

December 21st

Paul Banwell, the plastic surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital who is the skin cancer consultant and instrumental in expanding the MASCU (Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit) there which will serve four million people in the south east, and where Myfanwy's Charity recently donated £20,000 to fund the appointment of a specialist skin cancer nurse, did the five minute operation himself. He also commented on the vastly increasing number of people attending with moles that were 'doing something': and again, we're getting the message over.

He put in a few stitches, put a plaster over the top, and told me not to get it wet for four or five days: and after that, to dry the plaster off with a hair dryer! Now, I could foresee this causing problems: a week without a shower or bath, especially in the close and large family environment that was about to follow over Christmas, might at the very least ensure my being given a corner to myself and especially with a gaggle of grandchildren and their friends not noted for diplomacy. Also, it might attract comment if I stood around with a hairdryer down my trousers. But I'd try!

December 22nd

I had a telephone call from Terry Tietjen, for whom Myfanwy had worked years ago in his sports shop: and for years he's been a great supporter. He's proposing to his outdoor bowls club that they make the Charity the beneficiary of money raised at their next club Quiz: watch this space!

December 23rd

One of my favourite days of the year: that's the day that the days get longer! Two minutes more daylight each day until June 23rd: and then it's all downhill again to winter! I think that I must suffer, in a mild way, from SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder: or perhaps it's just that I don't like wandering around in the cold and the dark. But the main thing is, 'At least we're alive!', as I say to those miserable people who say 'Isn't it a terrible day?' as they brace themselves against a mild wind and a few spots of rain. 'Why, yes' they say. eyebrows raised: 'I suppose we are!' Obviously a new and innovative thought had suddenly invaded their mind: and they backed away nervously.

December 24th

Boys day out! One of our grandsons, William (seven in January), was taking me to the pantomime to see Jack and the Beanstalk at our wonderful little theatre Chequer Mead in East Grinstead. Our eldest son Mark brought him up from Worthing: I initiated him in to the joys of cream cheese and crisp sandwiches first, with the satisfyingly crunchy crackle as you pressed down hard on top of the sandwich.

The pantomime was great, with lots of 'Behind you!', and 'It's a ghost!' followed by the mass singing of 'Why does a red cow give white milk, when it only eats green grass?' etc.

The we drove down to his other grandfather's at Barcombe, near Lewes, for the group family Christmas at Mark's wife Lucy's father's farm (hope I've got all the apostrophes in place!) with her four sisters and families for a scheduled attendance of 21. Sadly, one entire family of four had been stricken by the 'lurgy', which reduced numbers to 17: but you'd hardly have noticed!

I told William, on the way down, that I'd had to get a new mobile telephone because I'd sucked up the end of the telephone charger in the hoover and the shop hadn't been able to replace this. I told him that the man in the shop had told me that this was the first time he'd ever heard of this particular problem.

'Well, it's not quite normal, is it?' said William, eyebrows raised. 'You are a bit strange sometimes, aren't you?' he said: 'Mind you, I quite like it' he added consolingly. Mark writes down the sayings etc. of the children: I wish that I'd done that when ours were younger. Perhaps this will merit an entry: like the time that Lucy was taking him to see her friend Linda, whose dog Henry had recently died. 'Tell Linda that you're sorry about Henry, William'. 'Why? I didn't kill him!'

December 25th

I took a shower at last: turned on the water, let the flex dangle, and water played around my legs from knee to toes without pointing upwards. After five minutes I had the cleanest toes in the business. Deodorant did the rest, after a quick flannel: but it didn't feel quite right! Fortunately, there was a stack of presents to open with eight children under ten around, which diverted attention. First, though, we all strolled down to the service in the little village church with a vicar who really entered in to the spirit of Christmas

I'd postponed the Empire State Building Climb until the stitches were removed: I'd done a 'half Empire State Building Climb (52 floors) a few days earlier: a sweaty climber, after maturing for the best part of a week, might have been too much for the assembled guests at the farm.

December 27th

It's the day after the day after the day after the day before: and I settled down to erase a thousand or so spam e-mails, reply to the other ten, reply to letters and generally catch up. The big publicity push for Twelve Months to Raise a Million was about to start: and I needed help!

But first, my first proper shower for the best part of a week: I'd never used a hair dryer before, but soon got the hang of it although it was certainly hot. I didn't want to add third degree burns, so it was a brief but quite invigorating session on the upstairs landing.

January 9th

A reply from Guinness at last! Obviously they'd been mulling over my request during Christmas and the New Year, perhaps wondering how they could placate me. I opened their e-mail eagerly. They hadn't entrusted it to Amanda Sprague this time: obviously, her reply had been way below the standards expected, and this time Carlos Martinez had been deputed, I imagined, to apologise for any hurt that might have been caused inadvertently.

But he didn't!

'Dear Mr Townsend', he wrote, 'Thank you for your enquiry regarding your intention to attempt the record for 'Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event'. Your proposal is not of interest to us as a new category (my emphasis, not his, I hasten to add). However, we have searched our Record Database and think that the following record may be of interest to you instead: 'Largest amount raised by a charity walk or run'. The current record (current as at the date of this letter) is: The greatest recorded amount raised by a charity walk or run is Can$24.7million (US$20.7 million, #9.1 million) by Terry Fox (1958-81) of Canada, who, with an artificial leg, ran from St John's, Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario in 143 days from April 12 to September 2, 1980. He covered 5373 km (3,339 miles)'

He added, as a somewhat cautious caveat, 'You may wish to check with us again closer to submitting your full claim to be sure that a new record has not been set in the interim.'

Not even a 'Sorry for all the anguish that this has probably caused'!

Now, I'm not often serious: but I can say, in all truth, that Terry Fox, and the wonderful Jane Tomlinson who died in the autumn of last year, are my true heroes. Terry, who had already lost a leg to bone cancer, ran more than twenty miles a day for five months to raise money for Cancer Charities: aged only 23, he was hospitalised near the end of his trans Canada run and sadly died. #9.1 million was scant reward for his fantastic bravery.

Jane Tomlinson had been diagnosed with terminal cancer six years ago: and in those six years before her death, with the help and support of her wonderful family, she worked her way steadily up the scale of 'Challenges' through a mere marathon to cycling across America coast to coast and to completing an Ironman Triathlon.

What's an Ironman? Well, you start by swimming 2.4 miles: then you get out of the water and cycle 112 miles and, as if that isn't enough, you climb off the bike and run a 26.2 mile marathon! Difficult enough if you're fit, trained and healthy: but suffering from terminal cancer, it's beyond belief. She raised more than #1 million for various Charities: what a wonderful lady!

A few years ago, in the mid 90s, I ran in the Midnight Sun Marathon in Nanisivik in northern Baffin Island, 480 miles north of the Arctic Circle. This alone was a wonderful experience: and every year, runners in this annual race would travel to the memorial to Terry Fox nearby and a short and very moving Service took place to commemorate a fantastic, courageous man.

Even in my wildest fantasies, I couldn't imagine raising such a huge sum as #9.1 million: he stands alone!

The only record that I could set was Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event: and it was quite a setback to be knocked back by Guinness!

Anyway, I'm going to establish an unbeatable record for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event: and, fully documented, it will be the first (and probably only) entry in The Townsend Book of Records.

Too Big for Guinness? would be a great title!

January 10th

Back to the gym: exercise and healthy eating would dominate my thoughts and my plummeting weight and cholesterol and increased fitness would soon be the envy of all around. But- can't really start just yet, because I was about to go to Buffalo to visit son Cameron, his wife Melissa and daughter Hanna (10), and I didn't want to cause them problems by insistence on an overly healthy diet. So I just 'ticked over': and when I get back, watch out!

January 15th

Off to the USA via Philadelphia. Five hours in Philly meant an airport meal: and I wandered round and round the six terminals looking for a healthy option. I couldn't find one in the Junk Food Cafeteria, which was doing a roaring trade, so I settled for a South Philly Dog, with grilled onions and cheese whiz, for a mere $5.35. It was perhaps the most revolting meal that I had eaten to date: a soggy roll, filled with a disintegrating sausage composed of red pulp and meat flavouring, coated in melting cheese on a bed of greasy onion, and a smell that clung to me like the friend that nobody wants.

Then, too late, round the corner I found the Healthy Option at Au Bon Pain: homebaked (hmm!) bread and cakes, and a range of soups. I didn't want them to feel that they lacked my support, particularly as they'd tried so hard: so I settled for a bowl of salty Tomato Florentine, with (so it informed me) select spices, fresh garlic, imported romano, tender pasta shells, leaf spinach and beef broth. Well, what better could any man want: and with a hunk of bread as well, all for $4.65!

January 16th

Buffalo (or more precisely, Williamsville) is great! A beautiful balmy day: just right for a stroll through the leafy suburbs to Tim Horton's where I managed to resist their tempting high calory bagels and settle for a cup of coffee. I went with Cameron to take Hanna skating in the evening: she's already had a couple of podium finishes, and her skill frightens somebody like me who has an almost pathological fear of ice. She'd generously given up her bed so that grandpa could have a decent week's sleep: and I snuggled under the duvet surrounded by posters of nubile young popstars.

January 19th

I went with Cameron to the indoor track High School athletics meet at the University at Buffalo. I'd been deputed to help with the high jump: which meant raising the bar as necessary, and replacing it when the athletes annoyingly knocked it off. The facilites are amazing: a huge indoor sports hall with a four lane 160 yard track (refreshingly, they still refuse to acknowledge metres), long and high jump pits etc. Thankfully, they didn't throw the javelin or discus indoors: otherwise, Cameron and myself would have been perforated and/or pulped. Could lead to another TV reality show, I suppose: catching the javelin or heading the discus.

That evening, the proof for our mini sponsor forms arrived by e-mail from Paul Paine of In-Press: it is fantastic, with a breathtaking view of the Grand Canyon, and a promise of delivery for when I got home. They're amazing, Paul! Thank you so much

January 20th

One of Melissa's nieces was celebrating her 17th birthday: so we all went to her pizza party at home with a cake half the size of a football field, and played a game called Apple as Apple. A strange game! Buffalo weather was doing what it normally does in winter: snowing!

Six inches or so is treated as just a minor inconvenience: the council keeps the footpaths clear with snow blowers, and the roads seem very much as usual. It would have closed Britain down, and a state of national emergency declared. Pity I'd omitted to bring any gloves: I went around with a pair of black socks on my hands, with the heel bits sticking up in little hummocks on the backs of my hands. Nobody mentioned it.

January 22nd

Time for a sad au revoir A week seems to have gone far too quickly. Hanna had another evening skating the previous evening: I took lots of photographs, which I promised to send to her so that she could make up a Valentine's Day card for Cameron and Melissa. Take-off at the airport was delayed for an hour and a half whilst they cleared the runways of snow: I bought a copy of the National Enquirer as I'd got nothing to read, but soon decided that having nothing to read was better than reading this!

We had only forty minutes to cross the six terminals at Philadelphia to catch the Gatwick flight: bearing in mnd that you have to be on board a cosy half hour before take-off, this seemed in the realms of improbability. But they commandeered an electric 'invalid cart' on behalf of myself and two passengers for Munich: and we sped through the airport, scattering able bodied passengers like confetti as we negotiated the Junk Food Hall and made it to the Gate in time.

Needn't have bothered, as it turned out: they couldn't get water pumped up to the galley and it took an hour and a half of high level engineering to rectify this. It was almost getting to the point where I was expecting the captain to clear his throat and say 'Ermm, we'd be grateful if passengers could refrain from using the toilets on the seven hour flight'.

They'd been repairing the water supplies earlier in the day, it transpired, but had obviously forgotten to test them out. Ah well, these things happen!

I learnt another very salutary lesson on the flight: my ploy of ordering vegetarian meals on the basis that a) you get served first and b) they're more tempting to the taste buds, came badly unstuck. It was (and I didn't need to consider my decision for too long- nano seconds, in fact- the worst meal that I had ever been served anywhere, even from relatives or at school as a child! I don't know what it was, so I don't know what to avoid if I see it listed on a menu in the future: but it was two slabs of subtly evil tasting yukk on a bed of soggy sticky rice beneath which a cauliflower floret and slice of carrot was cunningly concealed.

How do I know the taste? Well, actually, I ate it, because I was hungry: but even to the man who has never knowingly refused food, it was hard going! Anyway, I slept well for a couple of hours after that

After all that, we were only thirty minutes late landing at Gatwick!

January 23rd

Back home: could scarcely force open the front door for the mountain of principally junk mail. I was tempted to mound these up on a spike in the front garden as a 'Monument to Junk Mail', or make a modern sculpture for the Tate Modern: but I put it into the recycling bin instead. Maybe next year, though: after all, look what Tracy Emin achieved by just not bothering to make her bed!

Then I went through my e-mails: 1600 offers of cheap potions to ensure non-stop virility, sure fire investments, free inducements to casinos and lots of young ladies from Russia eager to show me their pictures. Oh yes, there were also a dozen or so e-mails which I'd actually wanted

January 25th

Paul brought round the sponsor forms: and they are great! I'm really proud of these: and they will go down so well! I just need 100,000 people to get 10 names on each form, and we'll be there.

I was talking at Cowfold Horticultural Society that evening about Harry the Wheelbarrow Man: a really receptive audience, and I got my first sponsors and dished out lots of forms which will be taken far and wide.

January 27th

Marian and myself met Rachel at Haskin's Garden Centre for coffee and a chat. Rachel is lovely; recently out of University, where she'd studied psychology (personally, I found difficulty in even spelling it, had to make two attempts), she'd then spent some months working at an orphanage in Ghana and was eager to get involved in worthwhile Charity work. We'd met when I was collecting at Haskins before Christmas, and she wanted to help with Twelve Months to Raise a Million.

She's happy to get involved in Horley, Reigate and Redhill, where she lives: and she also talked about YouTube and the possibilities of 'advertising' what we were doing there. I'd heard about it, but never seen it: and as soon as I got home, I put it up on the screen. There's an awful lot of rubbish there, at a very amateur level: but even these were registering hundreds of 'hits'. More importantly, there are also lots of brilliant videos there: and the boost for Twelve Months to Raise a Million could be fantastic!

Rachel is going to discuss it with a friend, who knows his way round YouTube: and as we said, the sooner the better.

We dropped in at Dove's Barn on the way home: Clive (the owner), Esther and Jo give enormous support and I dropped off a few sponsor forms with Esther who's going to distribute them amongst people that she knows.

January 28th

Dropped in at the East Grinstead Courier to see Jessica. We're planning the campaign for the year: first thing is for me to prepare a Press Release, the most difficult thing to do, because you've got to get the salient points over to a not always over receptive journalist or researcher in very few words! I spent most of the afternoon on this, chopping and changing paragraphs, essential to keep it all on one page. Jessica wasn't too good with the office camera, so the lady behind the enquiry desk did the honours, outside in the road. She said it looked good. Not too sure myself.

January 29th

Spent the morning on the Press Release. Sweet pea and sunflower seeds arrive today, great news

Then it was off to Yew Lodge for a Rotary Ladies evenng with Andy Ripley, one of the great extrovert England and British Lions 'stars' of the rugby of my youth! He was also a top all round athlete: I remember him running in the Polytechnic Marathon (in the old days, before the London Marathon, when it started from Windsor Castle!), running in the AAA 400m hurdles, winning Superstars (remember the days, when judo star Brian Jacks used to do phenomenal numbers of press ups), a top rower and recently World Indoor Rowing 2000m Champion: and oh yes, I almost forgot, a top business man in the City and an all round nice guy, who will do anyting for anybody at the drop of a hat! He lives nearby, and I'm very proud to count him as a friend: which meant that I was deputed to introduce him!

The downside to his story is that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer: but in typical Andy Ripley fashion, he'd taken it on as a 'Challenge'. He explained all the details of how it was diagnosed (almost accidentally, as it happened), the complications, and how it had changed his life. He'd written a really good book about it, Ripley's World, which has pride of place on my overloaded bookshelf (I love books!): and he was supporting the wonderful work done by the Prostrate Trust. We heard something about his rugby career as well: only thing he got wrong, I thought he said that Engand would beat Wales!

I had a further chat with him afterwards: sadly, he told me about one of my old Felbridge Juniors players and a 'star' of our World Tour to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji in 1979 and later of Rosslyn Park, Jim Agar (known as 'Bert' in senior rugby circles!). Jim now has motor neurone disease: and they're having a get together for him at Rosslyn Park on Saturday March 15th. The day of the England v. Ireland match at Twickenham! You just know that there'll be a twist in the tail from a plan like this, don't you? I'm writing this sentence in retrospect, you realise: because an e-mail from Andy early in March said that the get-together had been postponed until April 12th because Jim/Bert had got two tickets for England v Ireland! As Andy commented, he didn't know whether to be envious or sympathetic! In the light of England's defeat (in fact abject submisson) at Murrayfield, I suggested that 'sympathetic' might be more correct! We will see: anyway, Jim/Bert and Andy, I hope to be there on April 12th!

February 3rd

The day of the classical music concert being organised by the Muskateers, a Charity Group in North London. It was their first ever classical Concert, which took place at Belmont School, Mill Hill, and featured Gordon Back on piano, Serena Leader on violin, and Gemma Rosefield on cello: and I was on tenterhooks thoughout the day, guilty that I wasn't there, but common sense had dictated that this would be impossible given the complexity of Sunday evening travel across London, and hoping so much that it would be a fantastic success for Melanie