Bristol dad walks for Meningitis UK

Charity boss Steve Dayman has raised £45,000 from his latest long-distance trek to help in the fight against meningitis.

Mr Dayman has walked thousands of miles over the years in memory of his 14-month-old son, Spencer, who died of the disease in 1982.

His latest walk covered 323 miles and took him from Morecambe Bay to Bognor Regis in 15 days.

His completion of the marathon has now taken the total raised from all his walks to £1.75 million and the number of miles trodden to more than 11,000.

Mr Dayman, of Alveston, near Thornbury, is chief executive of Downend-based Meningitis UK and this year alone he has set off three times to walk in aid of the charity.

During the trek from Morecambe, which started in gale force winds, he was joined by more than 150 supporters at various stages as he made his way through Lancashire, Derbyshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire.

He finished at the pier in Bognor Regis, where the walkers were met by a carnival band.

After recovering, he said: "I've got the usual aches and pains but they are well worth it.

"We averaged £1,700 every day in bucket collections, so the public are still very sympathetic to the cause and it was a great opportunity to meet so many of our supporters along the route. I'm also grateful to the support team, who were all volunteers and gave up their time to drive the support vehicles and count money along the way."

The money raised will go towards Meningitis UK's Search 4 a Vaccine Campaign, which aims to raise £7m to fund research into developing a vaccine against meningitis B, the most common form of meningitis in the UK.