Nurse’s China trek inspired by patients

Marie Curie nurse Norah Baxendale with a special T-shirt created for her by her son

Norah in training for Great Wall walk

A MARIE Curie nurse will pull on her walking boots on the far side of the globe to raise money for the cancer charity.

Norah Baxendale, from Hathershaw, jets off to China on September 10 and will spend five days walking the Great Wall.

She has already raised £3,000 in sponsorship for the Marie Cure Cancer Care charity, which provides palliative care to allow people to spend their last days at home, as well as funding research and hospices.

Norah is one of six Marie Curie nurses covering Oldham, Tameside and Rochdale, and says the trip is her swansong as she was 60 in May and is winding down for retirement.

She used her birthday party at St Anne’s Rugby Club, in Oldham, to give her fundraising campaign a boost by inviting friends and family to give her donations instead of presents, as well as raffling donations from local shops and businesses.

She is busy walking around the Oldham area in training for the trek.

She has already been to London for a briefing with her 32 fellow Great Wall trekkers, and added: “They don’t talk in distances you will cover but in hours, which vary from five to eight a day. I think it’s all either uphill or down, there isn’t any flat.

“We will camp in villages, and I’m sure it will be a culture shock, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Norah, who has two sons and a grand-daughter, said: “I owe a big thanks to my husband David for getting me up to Pots and Pans and Hartshead Pike. We are also tackling the Oldham Way long-distance footpath.”

Norah started nursing in 1974 and has worked in most departments, from children’s to intensive care, and joined Marie Curie four and a half years ago.

She added: “I started off in palliative care when I cared for a friend 25 years ago at home, with the help of a very good GP and district nurses.

“Now it’s lovely to be part of a really superb charity which does support people where they want to be at the end of their lives, and seeing something evolve like this.

“I will be inspired by the humour, love, hope, integrity and endurance of the people that I have nursed. If you can’t be inspired by that, I don’t know what you can be inspired by.

“If I’m getting tired I’ll just think of one of their faces.”

Norah has a website for donations at:

www.original.justgiving.com/norahschinatrek