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Pair take on gruelling feat after family members diagnosed with cancer within month of each other
A pair of friends are taking on a gruelling feat after two of their family members were given a devastating diagnosis.
Jamie Sutherland and Nathan Sturdy are hoping to conquer Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon later this month after weeks of intense training. The pair decided to tackle the challenge after Jamie’s mum and Nathan’s aunty were both diagnosed with breast cancer – within a month of each other.
Jamie, 29, of Marton, and Nathan, 28, of Redcar, have already raised more than £1,500 for Cancer Research UK and say they have been overwhelmed by the amount of support. Jamie’s mum, Samantha Fancourt, 56, was diagnosed with breast cancer in January of this year leaving the family devastated.
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‘She’s the centre piece of our family’
PD Ports worker, Jamie said: “It’s affected us massively she’s the centre piece of our family. It’s such a horrible thing to happen and it’s not fair but it feels like I’m actually doing something about it to help.”
Jamie described his mum – who works as a civil servant – is an “amazing person” and said Nathan, who works at St Benedict’s Catholic Primary School, in Redcar, was also desperate to help when his aunty, Amanda Buch, 51, was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2022.
He said: “Nathan’s aunty was diagnosed a month before my mam. You feel like you can’t do much about it and there’s no way to help and you just have to watch them go through it.
“We started going on walks to talk about it and thought we could do a charity walk but then looked into the thee peaks. We thought if we did something that intense then hopefully it would spark more people to help the cause and donate.”
Jamie said the pair originally set a goal of raising £1,000 but have already smashed the target and now hope to hit the £2,000 mark. He said both his mum and Nathan’s aunty have been “blown away” by their fundraising.
The pair have been training intensely for weeks and say they feel ready for the massive feat, Jamie said: “I’ve always gone to the gym and Nathan plays football but we’ve never done anything like this. We’re literally training every other day. We’ve even been up Roseberry Topping at four this morning and ran up it three times. We’ve been training for about a month now.”
Jamie said the pair are going to travel to Scafell Pike this weekend to scope out the area before attempting the challenge on Friday, June 23. To donate to the cause click here.
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