GREAT Western Hospital’s Jemima Milton has raised more than £3,000 to thank the cancer nurses who supported her late husband.

The non-executive director at the hospital, who is also a Wiltshire Councillor, used pedal power to raise the cash by cycling from London to Brussels via Amsterdam to raise money for the hospital’s Brighter Futures charity, which supports treatments not usually available on the NHS.

She joined a team of 12 staff members who took part in the 346 mile challenge, which they completed on August 30.

Jemima said: “I wanted to do it to raise money for the specialist cancer nurses because I lost my husband, John Milton, two and a half years ago to bowel cancer.

“They were absolutely fantastic. But they have to go on all sorts of courses and take all sorts of qualifications.and they need money to do that.

“Their work just made John’s life so much easier and more comfortable, because they know and understand what he went through and what they could do to help.”

When Jemima signed up for the trip she had not realised how far it was, thinking that the three cities would be Bath, London and Swindon or something similar.

She said: “When I found out how far it was the first thing I had to do was buy a bike, which I did in January.

“Since then I’ve just been doing all sorts of different cycle routes but it’s been a very difficult thing to prepare for because it’s about endurance.

“We cycled 116 miles in one day – and I am never doing that again.

“It was a struggle at times but I just thought to myself that John had gone through much worse than this and I can do it.

“I am glad we did it as a team as well. There was a great sense of camaraderie and I think that really helped us to get through it.”

Challengers travelled back to the UK on the Eurostar where they enjoyed a glass of champagne to celebrate their achievement.