Cancer patients step out on mammoth charity walk

CANCER patients and their supporters have begun a countywide baton relay in Hull as part of a fundraising campaign.

- By TOM KEIGHLEY

Supporters of Yorkshire Cancer Research's We Walk For Yorkshire campaign will travel 35,000 miles through 35 locations in Yorkshire and Humber to mark the 35,000 diagnosed with the disease every year in the region.

The month-long effort got under way from the charity's centre on Ferensway in the city with the baton expected to wind its way to Yorkshire Cancer Research Centre in Harrogate by May 28.

Before that it will pass through the county's historic cities, rural market towns, along its coast and through the Dales with money raised along the way.

Each baton-bearer is invited to share a name of a person they are walking for and place personal messages inside the baton as it makes its journey across the region.

Among the first was 60 year-old Josie Clark from near Bridlington, who has undergone treatment for nodular melanoma, an aggressive type of skin cancer.

Last year, Josie went see her GP having spotted a lump on her leg, and was told immediately that it was suspected skin cancer.