CHARITY WALKER PHYLL BABB HITS HER TARGET AHEAD OF SCHEDULE – AND DOUBLES IT

Phyll Babb, the 99-year-old who decided to raise money for a Salisbury homelessness charity by doing 100 one-mile walks in her 100th year, has reached her target six months ahead of schedule – and will now keep going until she has done 200.

“I am amazed that I have been able to do it, and I remember each walk I have made,” said Phyll, who has so far raised more than £8,000 for Salisbury Trust for the Homeless (STFH). Gift Aid will add another £1,000 to that to help the charity, which has helped hundreds of homeless people turn their lives around.

Now Phyll, who will celebrate her 100th birthday on 13 July this year, has set herself a new target of 200 walks by that date and a dozen members of her family will accompany her when she goes around for the final time before a party on the big day.

“I feel physically fitter as a result of doing this and also feel better mentally,” said Phyll after completing her 100 circuits. “It is a win, win situation. You get more out of doing voluntary work than you put in.”

Since she began last August, she has been walking from her Salisbury home, round the Cathedral Close and back again using a Rollator aid of the type made famous by Captain Sir Tom Moore. Each walk is about one mile, and she has speeded up as her fitness level has steadily improved. “It has given me a reason to get out in the morning,” she said.

She has been accompanied on her walks by many leading Salisbury citizens, including John Glen, the local Member of Parliament, Councillor Sven Hocking, Mayor of Salisbury, former mayor John Walsh, the Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, the Reverend Canon Edward Probert, Chancellor of Salisbury Cathedral, and Lord Margadale, whose estates include Fonthill, near Salisbury.

Many others came forward to walk with Phyll when they heard of her remarkable fundraising effort. They have included a team from BBC Television, eight self-described ‘Welliwalkers’, who walk to get well, a dentist’s wife who drove up from Blandford in Dorset, friends, neighbours, members of the University of the Third Age, and senior figures from the Bournemouth Churches Housing Association, the parent body of STFH.

“They have all been delightful company and everybody has a different story to tell,” said Phyll, who has been keeping a log of her walks. “I have had a wide range of people and it has been lovely.” Donors via JustGiving, the online charity fundraising platform (link below) have included ten former pupils of Edgehill College, Bideford, in north Devon where Phyll was a teacher in the 1960s.

Gordon Pardy, head of fundraising for STFH, said: “We are so grateful to Phyll for undertaking this typically gutsy fundraising project in her 100th year. Our charity does not receive any financial support from central or local government, so we are very much dependent on the generosity of the public in Wiltshire and further afield.

Phyll was born in Bideford, north Devon, and went to Exeter University before working as a teacher. In 1949, she adventurously travelled by sea alone to Jamaica, where she taught in a girl’s grammar school for three years. After a brief spell in England, she took off again to Vancouver in western Canada before returning to the UK to look after her disabled mother.

Back home in Bideford, she carried on teaching but was also a keen member of the local yacht club, becoming secretary and then Rear Commodore. In 1986, she retired and the following year moved to Salisbury, where she became involved in a range of voluntary work – the Probation Service, Victim Support and U3A (University of the Third Age), for which she undertook senior roles at a national level. She was placed on the U3A Roll of Honour. She first became involved with STFH in 1998 and was chairman from 2004 to 2009.