Woman completes 200-mile challenge on 100th birthday
Phyll Babb, from Salisbury in Wiltshire, reached the finish line on Sunday, her 100th birthday, raising more than £11,000 for Salisbury Trust for the Homeless (STFH).
She had planned to walk 100 miles (161km), but doubled her target in January after realising she was ahead of schedule.
Completing the final mile around Salisbury Cathedral, Ms Babb said: "It's hard to believe I've done 200 walks. It's gone like a dream."
Ms Babb was born in Bideford, north Devon, and travelled alone by sea to Jamaica in 1949 so that she could teach in a girls' grammar school for three years.
After a brief spell in England, she headed to Vancouver in Canada before returning to the UK to look after her disabled mother.
She was a keen member of the local yacht club before retiring in 1986, when she started volunteering.
"Walking is good for you," she said. "I was brought up to walk, so as children we walked everywhere, and I still like walking."
She added: "It's been delightful. I've had a ball actually."
More news stories for Wiltshire
Listen to the latest news for Wiltshire
Ms Babb was cheered on by members of her family, who said she was an inspiration.
Her cousin-in-law, David Evans, said: "To reach the age of 100 and to do it so fit, looking so well, being so articulate, that's the really amazing thing she's done."
"She is inspirational, definitely. She's been inspirational my whole life, to be honest," Liz Huntley, Ms Babb's cousin, said.
And her great niece, Ruth Simmons, said: "Seeing my great aunt complete her 200th lap around the cathedral has been really special."
A local accountant and supporter of the charity had helped Ms Babb log her walks.
"He looked at every 20 walks I did, which I recorded on Strava on my mobile phone, and then he confirmed them in a little book," she said.
STFH supports single homeless people, the charity's head of fundraising, Gordon Pardy, said they were delighted to receive the cheque from Ms Babb.
"We bought a house recently, and so the money that Phyll has raised will go towards furnishing the house," he said.
"To do this in her 100th year was so impressive," he added.
Ms Babb said people had been "extremely generous" and said "thank you all very, very much".
Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.
'Inspiring' woman, 99, to walk 200 miles for charity
Woman, 99, midway in 100-mile charity walk
Woman, 99, to walk 100 miles for charity
Salisbury Trust for the Homeless
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'No evidence' malign activity caused Wednesday's air traffic disruption, says transport secretary
There is no evidence that malign activity was responsible for yesterday's outage of air traffic control systems, the transport secretary has said. Heidi Alexander said she has spoken with the chief executive of National Air Traffic Service (NATS), Martin Rolfe, and added that what happened was an isolated incident. NATS has apologised for the IT problems after thousands of passengers suffered extensive travel disruption during one of the busiest times of the year. The technical glitch led to more than 150 flight cancellations, leaving airlines reacting furiously. Ms Alexander wrote on X: "I have spoken with NATS CEO Martin Rolfe who provided further detail on yesterday's technical fault. "This was an isolated event and there is no evidence of malign activity. "I know that any disruption is frustrating for passengers. "Flights are now resumed and I am grateful to airlines who are working hard to get people to where they need to be. "I will continue to receive regular updates. Passengers should check with airlines before travelling." Read more: Officials said a "radar-related issue" caused the air traffic control failure. A spokesperson for NATS said: "This was a radar-related issue which was resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system during which time we reduced traffic to ensure safety. "There is no evidence that this was cyber related." The problem occurred at NATS' control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and affected the vast majority of England and Wales. Aviation analytics company Cirium said 84 departures and 71 arrivals were cancelled to or from UK airports up to 10pm on Wednesday, with several flights diverted to other European airports. There was limited disruption on Thursday, with a handful of British Airways flights cancelled because aircraft and crew were out of position. Heathrow and Gatwick airports said they had resumed normal operations. Affected passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation as the disruption was outside of airlines' control, but they will be able to claim expenses for a reasonable amount of food and drink, a means to communicate and overnight accommodation if required. Ryanair has called on Mr Rolfe to resign, claiming "no lessons have been learnt" since a similar systems outage in August 2023. The airline's chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: "It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe's continued mismanagement of Nats."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Air traffic control glitch was caused by radar problem
A 'radar-related issue' caused the air traffic control (ATC) failure that grounded flights across the UK on Wednesday, officials have said. Nats chief executive Martin Rolfe was summoned to meet Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander on Thursday morning, a day after thousands of passengers were disrupted by the technical problem which forced the cancellation of more than 150 flights. Airlines are demanding an explanation for what happened. A spokesperson for Nats said: 'This was a radar-related issue which was resolved by quickly switching to the back-up system during which time we reduced traffic to ensure safety. 'There is no evidence that this was cyber related.' The PA news agency understands that the back-up system continues to be used by controllers while investigations continue. The problem happened at Nats' control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, and affected the vast majority of England and Wales. A Government source said the failure lasted around 20 minutes, and the level of disruption was similar to a day with bad weather. More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports in August 2023 when Nats suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan. Aviation analytics company Cirium said 84 departures and 71 arrivals were cancelled to or from UK airports up to 10pm on Wednesday. Several flights were diverted to other European airports. There was limited disruption on Thursday, with a handful of British Airways flights cancelled because aircraft and crew were out of position. Heathrow and Gatwick airports said they had resumed normal operations. Before her meeting with Mr Rolfe, Ms Alexander said she wanted to 'understand what happened and how we can prevent reoccurrence'. Affected passengers are unlikely to be entitled to compensation as the disruption was outside of airlines' control. But they will be able to claim for expenses such as a reasonable amount of food and drink, a means to communicate and overnight accommodation if required. Ryanair called on Mr Rolfe to resign, claiming 'no lessons have been learnt' since the August 2023 outage. The airline's chief operating officer Neal McMahon said: 'It is outrageous that passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe's continued mismanagement of Nats.' Business minister Gareth Thomas was asked whether Mr Rolfe will be 'fired' over the incident. He told Times Radio: 'We are summoning – the Transport Secretary is summoning – in today the chief executive of of Nats to help us get to the bottom of what went wrong yesterday. 'Clearly, an incident happened two years ago and measures were taken then. 'It looks like those measures weren't enough but we need to get to the bottom of what exactly happened, and conversations will take place today.' A former industry chief said it is 'unrealistic' to expect an air traffic management system with no technical failure. Graham Lake, former director-general of air traffic management industry association Canso, told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'If you look at the minutes of outage over a period of years, your availability – system availability – is, frankly, very, very good. So I think it's unrealistic to expect a system where you have no technical failure. 'The failure yesterday was short and sweet, if you like, the recovery was quick – aircraft were operating again very, very quickly.'
News24
2 hours ago
- News24
Some UK flights cancelled after air traffic failure
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page. Nearly two dozen flights to and from UK airports were cancelled on Thursday, a day after technical problems with Britain's air traffic control system caused widespread disruption across the country. National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which provides air traffic control services for planes flying in UK airspace and the eastern part of the North Atlantic, said on Wednesday its systems were fully operational with capacity returning to normal after it switched to a back-up system. The second outage in recent years at NATS also affected Gatwick Airport near London, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland, and other locations, resulting in 122 cancellations as of 1830 GMT on Wednesday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Transport minister Heidi Alexander said she would meet NATS' chief executive Martin Rolfe "to understand what happened and how we can prevent reoccurrence". NATS is working closely with airlines and airports to clear the backlog, Alexander wrote on social media platform X. Across UK airports, twelve departures and eleven arrivals had been cancelled on Thursday as of 0730 GMT, according to Cirium. At least 16 flights, including departures to Brussels and Toronto and arrivals from New York and Berlin, had been cancelled at Heathrow Airport, according to its website. The airport, Britain's largest and Europe's busiest, was also hit by a fire at a power sub-station in March which stranded thousands of passengers. Ryanair Chief Operating Officer Neal McMahon called on NATS' Rolfe to resign, saying no lessons had been learnt since the August 2023 disruption caused by a malfunctioning in the automatic processing of flight plans. NATS, which on Wednesday apologised to those affected by the failure, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a response to McMahon's comments.
