Prasun Sonwalkar
Actor Brian Blessed is throwing his weight behind a cancer charity'sforeign adventure fund-raiser in northern India.
Brian, a keen mountaineer, has tackled Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro among other peaks and is now backing The Marie Curie Cancer Care'sOverseas Challenges.
Ruth Thompson, Bedfordshire and Bucks community fund-raising manager for the charity, said: ?I am delighted that Brian Blessed has agreed to endorse a series of Overseas Challenge events in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care.?
Over the past three years Overseas Challenge cyclists and trekkers have raised more than ? 400,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care, which has paid for more than 27,000 hours of nursing.
The charity provides high-quality free nursing to give terminally ill people the choice of dying at home supported by their families. The nurses care for around 17,000 patients a year.
Said Brian, who has starred in a variety of films including Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the TV series Z Cars back in the 1960s: ?The Marie Curie Cancer Care Overseas Challenges offer exhilarating and rewarding experie-nces in some of the most exciting parts of the world.
?All you need is a sense of adventure a reasonable level of fitness and the enthusiasm to rise to the challenge of raising funds for Marie Curie nurses.?
The British public is being urged to join the charity'sOverseas Challenge teams for the adventure of a lifetime in India, Nepal and Peru.
The Taj Mahal Cycle runs from November 6 to 15, 2004, the Everest Base Camp Trek from March 3 to 22, 2005, and the Inca Trail Trek from May 26 to June 5, 2005.
