FORSAKING the china in her shop, Sue Rowe of Tavistock is off on a ten-day sponsored walk to a different kind of China — armed with bags of loo rolls and wet wipes.

Sue, owner of Potters Bar in Brook Street, will join 62 others in the visit to the land of potter's earth, from which the finest porcelain has been manufactured. She has been sponsored to walk an 80km section of the Great Wall of China — which extends for 1,250 miles — in the areas north of Beijing, visiting areas few other visitors see in rural and small town surroundings.

'It will be very rough terrain as a lot has been left and is overgrown, and we will be staying in Red Army barracks,' said Sue. 'We have to take sleeping bags and woolly hats and gloves to sleep in as it gets very cold at night, but the most worrying thing is the non-existence of toilets.'

All there were, she said, were communal holes in the ground which were shared by men and women with no privacy, and there was no toilet paper or washing facilities — hence the loo rolls, together with wet wipes.

The walk has been organised by the National Star Centre College of Further Education, which is near Cheltenham and provides training for young people aged 16-25 who are physically disabled or who have an acquired brain injury. Funds raised will go to provide facilities there.

Anyone interested in sponsoring Sue should contact Potters Bar.