Mr. T. Kennedy from the Burnley Cancer Research Campaign and Mrs. E. Lumsden on the left with Stephen Hewson, an 11 year old pupil at Ivy Bank Comprehensive School who raised £40. Far right is Jimmy Lumsden with fellow cyclist Pt. John Donohue.
Burnley’s fund raising cyclist, Pte. Jimmy Lumsden of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, arrived home for a charity evening at the Centre Spot at Turf Moor to help the Cancer Research Campaign. Jimmy will now be based in the U.K. for four years and after a tour of duty in Northern Ireland is considering a “speed cycle ride” with the three colleagues who rode with him from Cyprus to England in the last 6 weeks. They hope to ride from John O’Groats to Lands End in record time. On their recent 2,500 trip, which will have raised around £5,000 for Cancer Research and the Limbless Ex-servicemen’s Association, their main problem was their bikes. Jimmy picked up a cheap Czech bike in Cyprus, British bikes being too expensive there, but had to find spares along the way as the bike broke down. They had a two woman back up team from the Regiment, but on several occasions, arrived at their destination to find the back-up team had taken the tents to a different site. Despite managing to keep together all the way from Cyprus to London, Jimmy lost touch with his pals between London and Luton, but eventually, they managed to meet up in Stoke. The four received battalion cycling colours for their achievement, the first ever awarded, and more good news for Jimmy was that en-route he had been promoted to L/Corporal.