Norfolk vicar in coast-to-coast challenge
 A Norfolk vicar has crossed England from coast to coast in a single day by bus to raise £2000 for the Vidiyal Trust and The Big C Appeal.
Rev Michael Kingston (pictured right), rector at St Mary's Church, Great Plumstead, near Norwich, crossed from Great Yarmouth on the east coast to Weston-super-Mare on the west coast on July 31, travelling using only local bus services.
He passed through Norwich, Peterborough, Oxford, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath and Bristol. With some nifty timetabling, changeovers and an absence of delays, the journey take only one long day.
Michael said: “I reckon it is about 300 miles and the challenge was to do it in a single day. I have a funny feeling that this is a first - nobody would be so daft as to do something like this!”
He has previous experience of such a challenge when in 2005 he traveled from Land’s End to John O’Groats using only local buses, also in aid of charity.
Michael is a long-time supporter of the Christian Vidiyal Trust, set up by Rev Pat Atkinson, a chaplain at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. The hands-on charity works among the slums of Northern Kerala, India and the tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, providing schooling and medical facilities to some of the poorest in those communities.
“It is a great honour to know Pat and to help her in this way,” said Michael.
Funds will be shared with The Big ‘C’ Appeal, set up 24 years ago by cancer patients Clive Bamford and David Moar who, after being treated successfully with chemotherapy at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, wanted Norwich to have similar facilities. Today, the amount the Big C Appeal has raised for cancer treatment and research stands at £12 million, but more is still needed to help fight the many forms of this killer disease.
If you would like to support Michael, and the two charities, you can contact him at mm.kingston@tiscali.co.uk or on 01603-434778
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