Salisbury woman to complete 100 mile-long fundraising walks

Phyll Babb will walk from her home around the city’s Cathedral Close and back again using a Rollator aid of the type used by Captain Sir Tom Moore.

Phyll plans to do the walks, which take her about 45 minutes, twice a week over the next year so that she can finish the last one by the time of her 100th birthday on July 13 next year.

Phyll aims to complete the walks before her 100th birthday (Image: Salisbury Trust for the Homeless)

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All the money that she raises will go to Salisbury Trust for the Homeless (STFH), which helps local homeless people get their lives back on track.

Phyll said: “I only decided to do this very recently.

“I was at the annual Salisbury Trust for the Homeless fundraising summer party and I thought ‘Here am I having a lovely time, and still fit and healthy. I can do something to help those less fortunate than I am'.”

A former chairman of STFH and longtime volunteer for the charity, Phyll continued: “STFH has helped such a lot of people who have been in its houses retrain and get back to normal living.”

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 and so we are very much dependant 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 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 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.

Phyll in Jamaica in 1952 (Image: Salisbury Trust for the Homeless)

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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.

To donate to Phyll’s fundraiser, visit justgiving.com/page/phyll-babb-1722779310016.