CHARLES GRAHAM: There's always the baked bean bath!
I was very sorry to be writing a story this week telling the world that there will be no more tales of derring-do from Gary Crompton.
The 45-year-old Standish plasterer has lightened many a news page with his exploits, such as hauling a double bed from St Albans to Wigan or lugging a 200lb fridge-freezer from Southport to Standish, negotiating the east face of Parbold Hill in the process.
And these adventures have all been for the best possible reasons, namely cancer charities.
Gary is a former prostate cancer sufferer himself and was prepared to push his body to the most extraordinary extremes in order to persuade people to part with their money for good causes.
They did so in their droves and he handed over thousands of pounds to a number of beneficiaries, including The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester.
But the training regime and the gruelling challenges themselves took their toll, and two months ago Gary suffered a heart attack.
Within days he was promising this was just a minor setback and that he would only be postponing his next fridge-freezer haul until later in the year.
But after doctors told him last week that further extreme exertion could kill him he has quite sensibly called time on such ventures.
I am sure Gary is very disappointed at the moment, but if his main goal is to raise money there is absolutely no law which states that you have to run yourself physically into the ground to do so. And, naturally, he is no use to either his children or charities if he isn't around for them.
There are plenty of challenging ways to raise money for good causes without having to break sweat, whether it be epic motoring journeys, sitting in a bath of cold baked beans or building a model of the Taj Mahal out of toenail clippings.
I hope that we will soon be seeing Gary coming up with more sedate but equally novel ideas for aiding those in need.
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Weather for Wigan
Thursday 09 September 2010
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Light rain
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