50 years on...

In the summer of 1962 when Frank Ifield was top of the Charts, Harold Macmillan was in his last year as Prime Minister and Ipswich Town had just been crowned First Division Champions, a bunch of 15 year old boys spent two weeks of the summer cycling up and down the hills of  Devon and Cornwall. They stayed in youth hostels, lived on virtually nothing and failed miserably to pick up any girls.

I was one of them.

In June this year four of the group (plus four others) who were all pupils together at Hayes Grammar School in the sixties, are doing the ride again to mark the 50th anniversary of the original trip, to celebrate our 65th birthdays and to try to prove we are still virile youngish men!!

Apart from being 50 years older, considerably heavier and collectively having significantly less hair than last time, there are a few other changes. We plan to start and finish in Dartmouth (last time it was London), only do it for a week and have a support vehicle carrying supplies of oxygen and alcohol!

Some things, however, will be just the same. We will be staying in some of the same youth hostels (God help us), we will be walking up the same hills and it’s extremely unlikely we’ll be picking up any women (especially if we are wearing lycra). In all we plan to cycle 300 very hilly miles!

Given this pathetic attempt to prove that the passing years haven’t really made a difference I have decided to use the ride for another reason – to raise some money for a particular charity, which is why I am writing to you to ask you to sponsor me.

My wife Sue was a VSO volunteer in Uganda back in 1968, and over the past three years she and I have been helping to fund a series of small employment projects in northern Uganda - an area until very recently ravaged by the Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony.

We have been to Uganda three times and the stories we have heard from returning child soldiers have been appalling. But even the lives of kids brought up for their own safety in Government camps are sad and chilling. We decided to help by giving money to assist groups of these young people set up their own small sustainable business enterprises. We also fund the cost of volunteers from VSO who help them get started.

The money we have given so far has funded twenty different groups, helping 600 young people in all.

Please read a few of their stories here.

What we have discovered is quite a small amount of money can make a big difference to young people who have lived through a traumatic experience unimaginable to the rest of us. For example:

£30 could buy a breeding pig for a piggery group

£85 could by seeds to help 20 youth grow high value crops to sell at market

£520 could support a group of 10 youth to establish an apiary (bee-keeping project) to produce honey 

£1,730 could provide a start-up kit and ingredients for a bakery group of 10 youth (including an industrial oven)

I am asking you to sponsor me on this ride so that we can give more young people in Northern Uganda a chance in life.

Thank you.

Greg Dyke

 

P.S. Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure.  Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. Plus, I’m personally covering the JustGiving fees to VSO, so every single pound you give will go straight to helping change lives for disadvantaged children in northern Uganda.