FORMER Stratford mayor Roy Lodge is preparing to get on his bike again to raise funds for the Shakespeare Hospice.
The one time Great Britain international athlete will be doing a sponsored cycle ride from St Albans Hertfordshire to Stratford.
He will be covering approximately 100 miles which he hopes to achieve in one day accompanied by his wife Gina in the car as support maintenance and refreshment back-up.
This will be one of many sponsored cycle rides Roy has undertaken for a number of charities including cycling from John O’ Groats to Lands End in 2011, and the return journey in 2013 for Parkinson’s UK.
His first and second sponsored rides were in 2006/7 when mayor and both were for the Shakespeare Hospice. The first was a 100 mile ride in the Cotswolds and the second from Lambeth Palace to Stratford with a family who accompanied Roy in memory of a loved one who had received palliate care from the Shottery hospice.
Roy’s interest and support for the Shakespeare Hospice goes back to the days when he was a medical student on placement at St Christopher’s Hospice in London and the admiration he had for Cecily Saunders the founder of the movement.
Roy said his continuing support for the Hospice is based on “a lack of strategy, a lack of impetus, and a lack of sustainable funding” for high-quality end-of-life care in England.
“The debate about how we ensure that people have good end-of-life care drags on interminably, and evidence of progress is depressingly meagre. There is a need for the adoption and implementation of a strategy that makes high-quality end-of-life care a national priority.
“It is simply not acceptable to be surprised that people die.”
Email [email protected] to sponsor Roy.
