Posties first class strides for charity

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POSTAL workers hope to deliver at least £2,000 to a cancer charity after completing a sponsored walk.



Fourteen staff from Hartlepool’s Royal Mail sorting office volunteered for the nine-mile walk in aid of a cancer charity.

Staff ranging from postmen, line managers and sorting office workers, based in the town’s Clark Street, signed up for the event on Sunday.

Walkers had been sponsored by family and friends and raised more along the way as passers-by put cash in collection buckets.

Postman Phillip Hetherington, 30, of the town’s Dunbar Road, said: “It was a red hot day and we had a good laugh.

“Everyone who took part enjoyed themselves.

“As we were walking along the promenade people kept stopping us and putting money in the buckets.

“There is still sponsorship money to come in, but we hope to have raised at least £1,000 and Royal Mail have said they will match it.”

The fundraiser saw them walk the length of Hartlepool and Seaton Carew’s coast from Hartlepool Maritime Experience to North Gare and back again.

They completed it in around two hours, which was a little longer than expected after they got lost in the sand dunes at Seaton.

Afterwards they headed to Cameron Sports and Social Club, in Waldon Street, where more money was raised through a raffle.

A signed Hartlepool United shirt, donated by midfielder Antony Sweeney, raised another £80.

All the money raised from the day will go to Prostate Cancer UK.

It was chosen as the Royal Mail’s charity of the year after more than 36,000 employees selected it in a national staff vote.