TWO cancer survivors who organised a mountain trek for charity are this week’s Local Heroes.

Peter Finnigan and Fran Playford were part of an 11-strong team that hiked across Jordan for nine days in aid of the Sussex Cancer Fund in October.

Peter, from Lewes, and Fran, from Pyecombe, hope the group’s gruelling effort will raise more than £50,000 for the MacMillan Cancer Support Centre, which is being built opposite the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

Peter was diagnosed with throat cancer in April last year and had surgery two weeks later at the Royal Sussex. He later underwent an intensive course of chemotherapy at the hospital’s cancer centre.

He said: “We spent hours on ledges with very dramatic and deadly drops looking down into deep canyons.

“We had people abseiling down rock faces and plunging into pools of water and swimming through them to dry land. I wanted to raise money for the support centre as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for my treatment. Everybody who looked after me was fantastic, from my surgeons to the MacMillan nurses and the radiographers.”

Fellow trekker Fran also survived throat cancer. She said: “I’m very lucky, very blessed to have a wonderful supportive family so I didn’t have to go through it alone.

“With this new cancer treatment centre opening it won’t be so hard if you don’t have any family. It is so important other people will get the same level of care and attention as I did.”

Describing the trek as “really, really difficult”, Fran added: “I’m not a good camper. I don’t like creatures and I don’t like heights.

“I had this vision it would be sandy with a palm tree at the end of it but in actual fact it proved to be much harder than I had anticipated.”

The group heralded their return with a celebratory ball at Wickwood’s Country Club in Albourne last weekend.

The £5 million Cancer Support Centre is a joint venture between MacMillan Cancer Support and the Sussex Cancer Fund, a local charity that supports the work of the cancer centre at the RSCH.

The two charities have already raised enough to build the centre, which is due to open next year, but now the Sussex Cancer Fund needs to find £180,000 a year to run it.

Fund manager Julia Lenton said the Jordan trek raised much-needed funds and awareness of the charity.

She said: “The team has spent a year trying to get sponsorship and that means they’ve talked to loads of people during that time and so have spread the word about the charity.”

For more information on the Sussex Cancer Fund, visit www.sussexcancerfund.co.uk.

  • HUNDREDS of heroes go almost unnoticed in our local communities.

But The Argus is determined to give them the recognition they thoroughly deserve.

We have teamed up with housing repair and maintenance company Mears for our weekly Local Hero Awards.

We are inviting readers to nominate their candidates and tell us why they have put them forward for the award.

Contact Ben Leo on 01273 544682 or email ben.leo@theargus.co.uk