Bereaved father is taking on Baltic rally for the Cambridgeshire-based Arthur Rank Hospice Charity which helped his family
A bereaved father and his team mate are taking on a challenging 6,000 mile rally to raise money for a charity that helped his family.
Stephen Hughes together with Gemma Bullock are preparing for the Baltic Sea Circle Adventure Rally this summer in aid of the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, which offers palliative care to dying patients in their own homes here in Fenland and also runs the Alan Hudson Day Treatment Centre in Wisbech.
Their target, a whopping £50,000 for the charity, which looked after his wife Jenny at their hospice in Cambridge when she was dying of a rare cancer in late 2019.
Jenny's death at the age of 35 left 39-year-old Stephen with their three sons, aged 15, 14 and nine, to care for and renovating his Porsche 944, which he bought for £600 off of eBay in 2014 helped him cope with his bereavement and kept him mentally strong for them.
Now he is hoping the car, which sat rusting on the drive for the past couple of years before the renovation, will take him and Gemma on a journey which starts in the UK on to the start line in Hamburg Germany, before then on the rally through the Baltic states: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Fenland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, before hopefully returning to the finish line in Hamburg.
Stephen explained Jenny had been having tingling sensations in her legs and was struggling to walk and was backwards and forwards to the doctors, before eventually a scan showed a tennis ball sized tumour on her spine between her shoulder blades.
She died six months after being diagnosed with the disease and Stephen said: "She was such a determined and kind person and fought very hard. The entire team at Arthur Rank supported Jenny, me and our three boys throughout, providing essential care for Jenny and helping our family make memories with activities.
"In Jenny's memory, I wanted to do something to raise a huge amount of money for the charity that supported us in our time of need. There are hundreds of other families in Cambridgeshire who go through the same thing each year.
"My team mate Gemma and I would love to be able to hit our target of £50,000 - and in order to get there we need to spread the word and gather lots of supporters. Just like a real rally car, all the people who donate and support my challenge will get their name printed onto the car, as a small thank you. I have a website and blog, which you can find here: https://wildspiritadventure.co.uk/"
The pair head off on June 17 ready for the start on June 19 and will hopefully be back in Hamburg by July 4, they won't be able to use sat navs or take motorways to complete the course, so it will be a real test for the Porsche
