AN Okehampton doctor is planning to spend every available Wednesday for the next two years fulfilling a long-held ambition ? while raising money for a small but vital charity at the same time.
Tom Bell, a GP at Okehampton Medical Centre, is aiming to walk the entire 630-mile length of the south west coastal path from Minehead to Poole to raise money for the Salt of the Earth charity.
Dr Bell said: ?Basically I?ve been wanting to do this walk for 20 years but I realised recently that given its length, I was never going to get the time to do it all at once.
?Recently I realised my work as chairman of a national medical society was coming to an end ? for the last few years this had occupied my time on a Wednesday, so I have decided to devote Wednesdays to completing this walk.?
Dr Bell said Salt of the Earth is an Indian charity which tries to support salt pan workers and their families in Southern India.
?They are the untouchables. These people live in extreme poverty ? with no shoes, the salt causes severe damage to their feet and the reflection of the sun on the salt causes many to become blind with cataracts at an early age,? said Dr Bell.
He said the charity buys the workers shoes and sunglasses, provides schools for the children and is trying to get decent water supplies to the villages.
Dr Bell is going to carry a bag of salt from one of the Indian villages with him on his walk, to emphasise the pitiful amount of money that villagers receive for the salt and what people pay for it.
He said as he will only be walking the coastal path in relatively small sections, it is likely to take around two years but he intends to photograph his travels throughout, recording the images and his reflections on the journey on a website he intends to build.
?By the end I hope to have raised the profile of the plight of these village people, learned how to build a web site and had great fund ? hopefully I will be a little fitter!? said Dr Bell.
Dr Bell was due to start his challenge at Minehead yesterday (Wednesday).
Anyone who would like to sponsor him or learn more about the work of Salt of the Earth can e-mail [email protected]">[email protected] or call 01837 840424 (eves) or 01837 52233 (day).