Coast to Coast for 60-year-old Susan Kirby after two hip replacements

Mar 12 2009 By Joanne Douglas

TWO hip replacements are not stopping a Netherton woman from completing the challenge of a lifetime.

Susan Kirby will celebrate her 60th birthday by walking 190 miles from Coast to Coast in aid of three charities close to her heart.

Mrs Kirby was born with a hip problem which was a blight on her early life.

It was only after her two hip operations – the first more than seven years ago – that she was able to consider the coastal challenge.

Now the newly-retired health visitor will walk across England following a route made famous by Alfred Wainwright.

She will spend more than 20 days on her feet trampling the hills, valleys and roads from the Irish Sea at St Bees in Cumbria to the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire.

She will be supported by husband William and loyal dog Chad in the journey which would have been impossible a decade ago.

And she will be supporting charities – the Camphill Trust in memory of her late father Norman Davies, as well as the West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust and Kirkwood Hospice.

Susan said: "It all started seven years ago when my father died.

"His favourite charity was the Camphill Trust which provides residential accommodation to people with learning disabilities.

"At his funeral we had a collection for the charity and I said to my mum that I would do the Coast to Coast walk.

"Well, I’d just had a hip operation and was still on crutches and needed the other hip doing so it was not possible then.

"And work and family life got very busy.

"But when I retired last August I decided it was the first big thing I wanted to do."

The health visitor was born with a hip complication and needed surgery when she was younger.