News story
22 April 2026
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust’s (ACT) intrepid team of trekkers setting out on a Great Wall of China challenge to raise funds for two new pioneering hospitals in Cambridge includes one team member who is terrified of heights.
Other team members have personal stories as to why they are walking, special birthdays to commemorate and challenges to conquer along with a love of the charity – with two staff members joining the trek, ACT’s Head of Community Fundraising, Donna Lee-Willis, and Rebecca Beattie, Events and Public Campaign Manager.
All of them have one thing in common: to raise funds for ACT to help build two pioneering new hospitals in Cambridge – the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and Cambridge Children’s Hospital.
Flying out next month, the eleven team members – who so far have raised just over £28,000 between them but hope to hit £30,000 – will trek a remote section of the Great Wall of China, often referred to as one of the great wonders of the world.
The team will trek stretches of the wall, which have been built and restored over thousands of years, from Gubeikou to Jinshanling and Simatai. They’ll pass through wild and remote landscapes with views of rolling hills and mountain peaks and stay in guesthouses along the way to experience authentic Chinese culture.
The trek is rated as moderate to challenging with many steep uphill and downhill sections to contend with whilst carrying a daypack weighing between 6 and 7 kilogrammes.
In total the team, who will be flying out to China on 7 May, will complete just under 50 kilometres over five days, averaging about six hours a day. However, although the distances trekked appear short, due to the hilly terrain it can take 6-7 hours to trek just 5km, as ascent and descent ranges between 515 metres and 866 metres each day.
The trek is ACT’s first international challenge and will be raising money to help build both the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and the Cambridge Children’s Hospital.
The Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital is a first for the East of England and will bring world-leading research and clinical excellence under one roof, changing the story of cancer, and improving the lives of cancer patients across the UK and beyond.
Built over seven floors, the new hospital will house three world-leading research institutes, embedded within the hospital, which focus on early detection, integrated cancer medicine and precision breast cancer medicine to accelerate and bring new innovations to the bedside faster, detect cancer earlier and treat it more precisely.
Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England, the only region in the UK without one. Like the Cancer Hospital, it will be built on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Europe’s leading life sciences cluster, with construction due to be complete in 2030. Once open, Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be unique in fully integrating mental and physical healthcare under one roof, alongside world-leading research solely dedicated to children’s health.
Spread over five floors, the new hospital will include 108 inpatient beds, 16 paediatric intensive care beds, 42 day-case beds, seven operating theatres, imaging and diagnostics, a hospital school and a 5,000 square metre University of Cambridge research institute.
Since signing up for the challenge, the inspirational team of trekkers have become quite close – meeting for training treks which have included going up and down the steps of a multi-storey car park in Cambridge as well as walks on Royston Heath. They have also organised their own personal training – with one team member, Sharon, from C4B Media, climbing the 674 steps of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Andrew, climbing Snowdon. The team have also met socially on several occasions, including a fundraising quiz night including family members.
Each team member has their own reason for signing up but probably the biggest surprise of all in sign-ups was Nick Ferguson, a lorry driver for Royal Mail, whose fear of heights is so bad he doesn’t even like climbing a ladder.
Nick blames ACT’s Donna, a family friend, for persuading him to sign up.
“I was in Ascot with Donna and she was talking about it and after a few beers, I thought it sounded like a great idea. It was a moment of craziness and I thought, why not? It’s a good thing to do something for charity but now it’s getting close, it’s getting more and more daunting. Right now, I’m as scared as anything.”
He says just looking up makes him feel sick and if he has to climb a triangular ladder with nothing to hold onto, he struggles. He said his wife has been showing him photos of sections of the trail which are just loose rubble – saying, “The last photo she showed me literally gave me the sweats. I definitely won’t be looking over the edge!”
As the Trek gets closer he gets more and more nervous, adding: “Driving around at night, obviously just me in the van with my thoughts, it’s literally all I’m thinking of.”
Nick, a father-of-four from Hertfordshire, said Donna has also managed to persuade him to run the London Marathon in the past too, joking, “That’s why I’m going to have to stop associating with her!”
Also in the team is Annie Ng, who works at Addenbrooke’s, and Sharon, Christine, Peter and Sarah from C4B Media, an official corporate partner at ACT.
They describe their support for ACT as ‘not just professional – it’s deeply personal’ after several members of the team have experienced first-hand the outstanding care and compassion of Addenbrooke’s over the years.
Creative Director, Sarah Kralj’s daughter, Cerys, was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and owes her life to the care she received at Addenbrooke’s – before birth, during delivery and in the critical months and years that have followed. Cerys is a member of the Cambridge Children’s Hospital Youth Forum and has been involved in a number of meetings and design workshops for the project, contributing to how the future hospital will operate, look and feel.
Managing Director Sharon Grocott is Cery’s aunt – and both Sharon, and mum Sarah, will be completing the trek to give back to Addenbrooke’s. Their fundraising events have included a pottery day, drag bingo and a pilates and prosecco event.
As well as ACT’s Donna, and Rebecca Beattie, the final team members are:-
- John Eagle, who works for the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which manages Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie. He is also a patient and describes the care he and his family have received at Addenbrooke’s as ‘outstanding’.
- Maxine Farmer who took on the challenge to celebrate ‘a significant birthday’ last year.
- Andrew Walsh, who in addition to the trek is also doing 7 marathon distance walks in seven days, after signing up to raise money for Addenbrooke’s after hospital staff saved his life. After being involved in a serious car crash, the team saved him by finding and removing a 27mm lump in his thyroid.
Asked about some of the ‘most likely’, ‘least likely’ ‘most looking forward to’ moments, Donna says most likely to freeze at the top of the wall will be Nick; least looking forward to would be herself with two things – not being able to wash and dry her hair every day and having to carry nappy bags in the event they need the toilet as there aren’t any along the route and there are no bushes to hide behind!
But despite any concerns, Donna says everyone is really looking forward to their challenge.
“We are all absolutely determined to finish the Trek, even Nick with his fear of heights, because we all know what a difference the cancer research hospital and the children’s hospital will make to the region. If we have days when we are struggling all we will need to do is think of that and that will get us through.”
To read more about the Trekkers’ personal stories and to donate to their fundraising pages, click here.
