Latest news with #Sedbergh
BBC News
11-07-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Cowgill landslip detour adds hours to family's care trips
The parents of a disabled child who spend 15 hours each week navigating a rural road closure to access care for him have taken their fight to Parliament.A landslip last year shut the main road that Barney and Harvie Strange take from their rural home in Cowgill, near Sedbergh in Cumbria, to Ingleton, where their son Rafferty receives specialised care and their two other children attend means a 20-minute trip now takes 50 minutes, which Mr Strange said was "devastating" for the and Furness Council said it was "actively developing" a scheme to reopen the route, however it was aware the process was taking time. Rafferty, who is 20 months old, has a rare muscular condition which means he is quadriplegic, has to be fed via a tube and has significant difficulties with his family arranged to train a carer who lives in Ingleton, to make the school run and logistics easier, but the landslip hit two weeks after the carer had qualified. The detour is not just costing the family about £300 more in fuel each month, but is also potentially dangerous for Rafferty, they say."With somebody with complex needs as our boy Rafferty, it's really difficult to transport him around," Mr Strange, 40, said."One of the problems he has is that he vomits and then he's unable to clear his own airways, so we have to suction his airways or tip him upside down, and when we transport him in the car, that's much harder."He said much of the caring and driving to appointments was done by Mrs Strange, 39, who also juggles looking after their other two children - Wallace, four, and Dilys, two. Mr Strange, who works as a paramedic, has set up a campaign group which is pressing Westmorland and Furness Council to find a this week, he travelled with his wife and Rafferty to Parliament with a delegation from charity Hospice organisation lobbies government for policy change and represent hospices across the UK, including Jigsaw, a children's hospice based in Carlisle which supports the Strange spoke to a group of MPs as part of the launch of a report called Bringing Care Closer to Home, which highlights inequalities that exist in rural communities for those who are dying or life-limited, such as lack of transport and the need to provide care at a said he felt listened to by the MPs and the report was due to be considered as part of the government's 10-year NHS plan."We were asked to go down partly because of the landslip, but also because of our experience with having a boy who is under the palliative care service, about the difficulties of living rurally," Mr Strange said the couple chose to raise their children in the countryside "in pursuit of a simple and innocent life," but until he was faced with the challenges of accessing care for Rafferty, he had not appreciated the inequalities faced by families in rural areas. Rafferty receives specialist care at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, as well as at hospitals in Lancaster and Kendal."It's a hard life for us now," Mr Strange said."Rafferty is a gorgeous happy little boy, it's just the situation we're in."The family, together with the community group they set up, are calling for Westmorland and Furness Council to create a temporary route through the diversion, while they continue to find a permanent solution to reopen the Strange said: "We don't want to be in a position in the winter, where we're having to take our profoundly disabled boy over the hills, which are almost inaccessible, and then he has difficulties with his airways. "That is a genuinely life-threatening emergency that, short of us staying at home for the whole winter, I can't avoid."Westmorland and Furness Council said it was required to follow legal procedures to deliver a long-term solution and they were aware of the frustration the diversion had added the council was working with a contractor to actively develop "a proposed scheme" and was "preparing to carry out the necessary works to reopen the route, which is a top priority for the council". Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Brothers break world 'Everesting' record in memory of their dad
Andrew and Joe Symonds beat the world record for running an Everesting attempt by 36 minutes (Image: Steve Cooling) Two brothers broke a world record running the height of Mount Everest up and down a single hill in Sedbergh last weekend. Joe and Andrew Symonds took on the 'Everesting' challenge to raise money for charity and in memory of their father Hugh, 35 years after he set his own world record. Advertisement 'Everesting' is a concept that sees runners, cyclists and skiers pick a hill anywhere in the world and repeatedly run, ride or ski up and down it until they reach the elevation of Mount Everest, 8,848m. Joe Symonds said: 'I'd only ever seen people attempt Everesting on bikes, and I wanted to see if I could do it on foot. 'When I was looking for a hill to use for this Everesting attempt, Winder seemed like the perfect choice,' said Joe. 'Apart from being the ideal gradient and terrain for the challenge, it would have been the hill that our dad ran on the most in his life.' Joe and Andrew's dad Hugh was a school master at Sedbergh School and lived in the town for 43 years. Advertisement A prolific fell runner throughout his life, Hugh Symonds set a world record in 1990 after continuously running over all the 3000ft mountains in Great Britain and Ireland in 97 days – a record that stands to this day. Read more Hugh's sons wanted to follow in his footsteps in fundraising too, aiming to raise £8,848 for Practical Action, a charity that develops sustainable solutions to health inequalities and poverty in poor communities, and the same charity that their father raised £20,000 for in 1990. Setting the route on Winder meant measuring a 148m stretch up the front face of the hill, which the brothers would need to run 48 times to reach the height of Everest. By completing this in 10 hours 8 minutes and 53 seconds, they built the previous record by 36 minutes. Advertisement The pair were supported in their efforts by friends and family who ran several of the laps alongside them, while Sedbergh School organised relay teams who took on the same challenge in teams, collectively reaching the same elevation. Joe and Andrew said the support from everyone has been incredible, already reaching 91% of their fundraising target. 'Mum was there for the whole day and a lot of family members ran with us,' says Joe. 'It felt like the right thing to do for Dad too, he would have loved it.'
BBC News
18-05-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Cumbria firefighters plea amid busy wildfire season
Cumbria is under an extreme wildfire warning and the county's largely on-call fire service is braced to tackle the wide-reaching blazes. With a high number of the fires being caused by members of the public, two firefighters describe the dangers they face, and the toll it takes on their families. Phil Gardner is ready for a busy the on-call watch manager at Sedbergh fire station, he has noticed wildfires becoming increasingly common over the last 10 years."Everything's like a tinderbox," he said of the current vegetation is dry and the lush growth has yet to come through, with problems already being take a toll on people's livelihoods, obliterate wildlife and put firefighters' lives at risk, on-call watch manager at Appleby fire station Neil Aitken added."Come to enjoy the countryside, but be safe, be responsible," Mr Aitken said. 'You don't get any warnings' On-call firefighters maintain regular jobs, but respond to emergencies - dropping whatever they may be doing to respond to a call Gardner, 44, remembers watching a nativity performance at the school village hall when his pager went off, alerting him to an incident. "There was a big rattle of chairs and five of us ran out," he said. "Apparently, the kids just carried on." Mr Aitken, 62, remembers putting the first roast potato in his mouth one Christmas Day when he got called to attend a fire."Four hours later we're still out, and I come back to a Christmas lunch that's been under the grill for hours," he recalled a wildfire in Lancashire he and his team were called to."We went down initially for 24 hours, 10 days later we managed to get back home," Mr Aitken Gardner said: "There's no predictability about it either, you know?"It could happen at anytime, day or night. You don't get any warnings." 'Worst day of somebody's life' Tackling wildfires is a long, hot and arduous job, Mr Gardner all the equipment up the Cumbrian fells, sometimes on foot, is an "absolute nightmare", he added."You can't work for long in the fire kit because it does get very hot," he said."You're literally stood, like, a metre or two metres away."Ten to twelve hour days during those types of incidents are common, Mr Aitken Aitken, who like Mr Gardner joined the service at the age of 19, said he was getting to the twilight of his career but, in his head, he was still enthusiastic to help."Where you're going out, it's probably the worst day of somebody's life, and you can go and you can make a difference," he said."It's just my body shouts a bit at sometimes." 'Carelessness risks lives' They are asking people to tidy up after themselves when they have been out in the wildfire was caused by a bit of broken glass which had magnified the suns' rays and sparked a blaze, another by a disposable direction of the wind meant the BBQ was still there, with a couple of square kilometres of burnt grassland in its wake, Mr Gardner recalled."It can be annoying at times," Mr Aitken said."Just one person's carelessness, it's putting other people's lives - firefighters' lives -at risk." Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
