Wigan dad faced 'non-stop pain' in fund-raising hike up Scafell Pike in a vintage diving suit
Wigan dad Nigel Brookwell took on his second physically demanding charity challenge in less than two months.
A Wigan dad helped to raise thousands of pounds by hiking up England’s tallest mountain - wearing a vintage diving suit weighing 80kg.
Nigel Brookwell, 53, enjoys pushing his body to the limit and has taken on several unusual challenges to raise money for good causes.
In June he raised more than £8,000 for Daffodils Dreams by pulling a 15-tonne barge along the canal from Wigan Pier to his home village of Crooke, walking barefoot carrying a 35kg sandbag to Swinley and crawling on his hands and knees to Standish.
Just a few weeks later, Nigel was doing another gruelling challenge to support two good causes.
He was part of a team tackling Sub-Sea to Summit, which involved swimming in Wastwater in the Lake District before walking up Scafell Pike.
Each person walked 100m, before getting out of the heavy diving suit and passing it to the next walker.
Nigel said he was “nervous” before the challenge, as he was still tired from June’s effort, but described it as a “positive life experience”.
The team previously did the same thing at Ben Nevis in 2018 and Snowdon in 2022, so this completed their own version of the three peaks challenge.
He said: “We set off at 8am and got to the summit at 4.30pm. It was non-stop pain. I had never done Scafell before and even though it’s the smaller of the three peaks, it’s a very unforgiving mountain because it gets steeper and steeper.
“The men were all brilliant. We were very relieved and tired. There were a few injuries but nothing serious at all.
”The weather wasn’t the best, but it never actually rained on us properly so I was very grateful for that. We had to carry the kit down afterwards, so the surface would have been very slippery indeed.”
They were supporting Wasdale Mountain Rescue and Florence Moffat-Charles, who has a rare liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis and cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer.
She is not eligible for a transplant in the UK, so had surgery in Turkey earlier this month, with money still needed for ongoing care.
More than £3,000 was raised for the mountain rescue team, while donations to help Florence can still be made at www.gofundme.com/f/help-florence-get-a-lifesaving-liver-transplant.