AN Ilkley architect has embarked on an ambitious project to visit all the mainland lighthouses in Britain on his cycle, to raise money for the charity his wife set up before she lost her life to cancer.
Matthew Sturgeon, 55, is doing the huge trek in stages, and in January visited his 100th lighthouse, on the Lincolnshire coast.
With friends and well-wishers sometimes tagging along, Matthew is determined to visit every lighthouse on mainland Britain - almost 200 of them. And then, he says, he might start on the off-shore lighthouses.
He said: “I’ve always liked to visit places at the extremes, and that’s very often where you find lighthouses. They’re beacons of hope and safety, which is why I like them.”
It’s all to raise money for the A Bit of a Break charity, founded by Matthew’s wife Angela, who died in December 2016, five years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
A Bit of a Break is something of a beacon of hope for those living with cancer - the charity organises short breaks for them and their families and friends.
Matthew said: “Basically, we realised that a lot of holiday properties in the UK lie empty for certain periods, so we contact the owners to see if they will donate those properties to us for odd weeks here and there when they never get any bookings, and we sort out the administration costs and cleaning, that sort of thing.
“It is very difficult for people with cancer to get a holiday. They are sometimes undergoing long courses of treatment, or they don’t know how well they’re going to feel at any given time, so it can be difficult to book something in advance.
“A Bit of a Break provides exactly that - a holiday that can mean so much to the person and their families, just give them that time away from home that they need.”
Matthew, with his new partner Jane, decided to do the lighthouse trek to raise money for the charity. He is a keen cyclist, just as Angela was, and she raised almost £40,000 for the cancer charities before getting the idea to form her own charity.
Matthew decided to combine his love of lighthouses and cycling with raising money for A Bit of a Break in 2019. He said: “There’s no real plan - sometimes I tie it in with a visit I might be making to a certain part of the country, other times I head off for the weekend to somewhere new.
“I invite people to join me, and it’s not a hardcore cycling weekend. There’s no point in just putting your head down and cycling without looking around at the countryside and the views.”
Matthew, who has two grown-up children with Angela, is planning his next lighthouse run for North Wales sometimes in May. His progress can be followed at his blog (https://projectlighthouse.blog/) and for more information about A Bit of a Break, go to: https://abitofabreak.com/
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