INSPIRED by a woman who spent her summers in Carcassonne picking grapes, her son and a group of friends and family have completed a 1400-kilometre charity cycle ride from Oxfordshire to the south of France in her memory.
Ben Last took on the challenge in recognition of the care his mum Sue and the family received from St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol in the final stages of her life before she died in 2020.
“The care they provided for my mum, and the support they offered to us, her family, was incredible. It made a huge difference, and I wanted to do something to give back and honour her memory,” said Ben, a financial analyst who lives in Redland.
“Mum spent several summers in her twenties in Carcassonne, where she would pick grapes in the vineyards and sell fruit in the local market in exchange for bed and board (and a two-litre-per-day wine allowance!).
“Carcassonne remained very special to her, and she often shared stories about the summers she spent there. Shortly before she passed away, Mum took us back and showed us the fields and streets that had brought her so much joy.”
The cycling group, which included Ben’s father, Stephen, and brother, Tom, camped along the way and faced a couple of days nearly washed out by rain.
“We ate an incredible amount of baguettes, croissants and Haribo. And at the very end of the trip, I proposed to my girlfriend, Daisy, using one of my mum’s rings that my dad had kept in his bag for the entire journey – and she said yes!
“It was the perfect way to end the trip, and something I know my mum would have been so pleased about.”
For Ben, the route held deep personal meaning, linking two places that had always been special to his mother.
“She went to live in Great Tew – an idyllic Oxfordshire village at the age of four; it left a huge impression on her, and she went back many times to visit. Her ashes rest by the cricket pitch and under the cedar tree at the top of ‘Cow Hill’.”
Along with his father and brother Tom, 31, the group included Archie Morfoot, 28, Max Heiberg-Gibbons, 28, Sam Milliner, 28, Dom Griffiths, 28, all from Bristol; Daisy Handford, 27, from Leicestershire and Ben O’Connor, 27, from Yorkshire.
St Peter’s Hospice relies donations and fundraising to deliver its services.