Phil to trek 3,000 miles for charity

9:09am Tuesday 2nd May 2006

AN INTREPID widower who lost his wife to cancer is to trek 3,000 miles across the United States in her memory.

Phil Goddard, 47, is preparing for a six-month expedition which will see him walk from New York to San Francisco in honour of his late wife Jayne who died of colon cancer in January.

The freelance translator has already managed to raise £1,500 in sponsorship.

He hopes to raise £10,000 for the Association for International Cancer Research.

Mr Goddard, of Foxwood Road, Blackheath, will start the mission in the middle of June the same month his wife would have turned 50.

He said: "Jayne was a larger-than-life person, very outgoing and popular.

"She wouldn't have wanted me sitting at home and moping, so I though I would try and extract something positive from her death.

"I hope this will help me come to terms with it and make lots of money for good causes as well."

The trip, which Mr Goddard has dubbed Journey for Jayne, will see him walk around 20 miles a day, six days a week.

He says he is not relishing certain parts of the journey and admits he will probably end up sleeping in many a ditch and cheap motel.

Around 200 people have done the walk before but most of them have been accompanied by a vehicle.

But Mr Goddard plans to go it alone, taking only a mobile phone, a laptop and a portable solar panel to power them.

Mrs Goddard was diagnosed with colon cancer in June last year and died following a seven-month battle with the illness.

She had a passion for music and worked as a speech therapist and psychotherapist at Lewisham Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Greenwich.

Visit justgiving.com/uswalk to make a donation.

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