This article was recently published in the Sunday Post newspaper. It reveals the story of Tracey, 60, who is about to walk the coast of Britain in memory of her wife Angela and to raise money for cancer charities.
‘I think of Angela every day. I talk to her on my walks’
What started as short local walks “just to get the dog out the house” has turned into an epic hiking mission for a grieving widow.
On November 1, Tracey Howe will set off from Glasgow to walk 5000 miles around the entire coast of Britain in memory of her beloved wife.
The 60-year-old believes that walking is the therapy she needs as she deals with the “horrific gaping hole” left when Angela White, her partner of almost 40 years, passed away from cancer last September.
The mum from Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire, will take a year to complete the challenge and she has set a target of raising £100,000 for a number of charities.
Tracey says: “My long walk will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done by a long way – both physically and mentally – but I hope it will turn my grief into a positive.”
Walking therapy
Revealing how the idea for Tracey’s Trek came about, the former professor of rehabilitation sciences says: “After Angela passed away I found myself falling into a dark space; sinking into the sofa and not sleeping.
“However, our dog Poppy needed to be walked and Initially I had to force myself to take her out. Then I realised that walking was a way of reconnecting with life and nature.
“The regular automatic movement is sort of meditative and provides a safe place to think, to remember and to cry. The physicality also became an outlet for my anger.
“Another benefit is that when walking I meet a lot of people who never knew Angela or me as part of a couple. I have found it easier to talk with these people without the burden of grief that I feel with friends and family.
“It was all the local walks, which started to progress to longer walks and further afield, that led to the idea for the walk around Britain.”
A tour of the British coast
There was another impetus for Tracey’s major UK tour. The couple, who had been married for nine years and brought up their two sons Will, now 26, and 23-year-old Danny, decided after retiring they would travel in a motorhome around the British coast.
While bittersweet, Tracey believes Angela would approve of her new round-Britain journey.
She says: “I think she would be proud and very supportive of my new plan to travel the UK on a similar route but on foot and solo.
“I will be visiting a lot of places significant to us as a couple and it will give me an opportunity to think about those memories.
“I think about Angela every day and I talk to her while I’m walking, so this is a pilgrimage of sorts.
“It will be a special way to maintain a connection with Angela and also with a sense of purpose because I am raising money for charity.”
Fund-raising for charities
The start point for the trek is poignant. Tracey says: “I am departing from the The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre and walking anti-clockwise south through northern England, then around the Welsh coast and back to England again.
“I hope to be back in Scotland, first on the east coast, then north and west by next summer and I will finish where I started.
“The staff at the cancer centre in Glasgow gave us so much support through Angela’s illness and I want to be able to say thank you by raising money for the Beatson Cancer Charity.”
Other charities to benefit from the fund-raiser include Marie Curie and Braintrust. Tracey’s sister-in-law, who is being treated for breast cancer, has also chosen Breast Cancer Now and CoppaFeel.
A year of walking
Tracey, who will turn 61 during the walk, will be aiming to walk 20 miles each day, six days a week following as many way-marked coastal paths as possible.
She plans to hand out a hand-made crocheted heart for each mile covered as a symbol of Angela’s caring nature and to show others who are grieving that they are not alone.
Tracey says: “I have spent the summer busy knitting hearts and also building up my fitness with plenty of walking and also running.
“I need to be prepared as I can for walking day after day when I set off and I will be facing a wide range of terrains and all four seasons of the UK weather.
“I know it is going to be tough but this challenge I have set myself is an immersion in nature and all its rawness to help me feel alive again.”
Tracey’s Trek will be supported by friends and family driving a motorhome and she hopes that local people will walk with her and offer places for parking.
A cruel double blow
Angela’s cancer diagnosis in early 2023 was not the first time she had faced a health blow. In fact, she had been recovering from major surgery for what turned out to be a benign brain tumour when she was delivered more devastating news that she had two aggressive blood cancers, myeloma and amyloidosis.
Tracey explains: “Just before the Covid pandemic, Angela started to act strangely and her personality seemed to change.
“As a family, we put it down to different things, including her mum dying of Covid and changes in life and work and depression.
“Angela retired in April 2021 and things continued to get worse with her behaviour and ability to do things and we wondered if she had early onset dementia.”
Then, in November 2022, Angela suffered a seizure and doctors discovered she had a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball, which they believed had been growing for 10 years.
Within a week, she had her first operation to remove the tumour, following my several more.
Despite the harrowing surgeries, Angela started behave more like her old self and Tracey says: “We were thrilled to have the Angela we knew returned to us.”
Only six weeks later, however, the former psychotherapy nurse complained of excruciating back and hip pain and she was rushed back to hospital.
“That’s when doctors diagnosed her with two different types of blood cancer,” says Tracey.
“First was Myeloma, which affects the bone marrow and plasma cells. This was effectively eating her bones and stripping out the calcium. We were told she also had amyloidosis, this time affecting her organs.
“The cancers were described as the most aggressive the team at the Beatson Cancer Centre had ever seen.
“We couldn’t believe it. We were dumbstruck and it felt so cruel. We were so angry with the cancer and the brutality of it.”
Six months later, on September 29, 2023, Angela died aged 58 at home and while holding her wife’s hand.
Research on the benefits of long-distance walks
Research shows that long-distance walking is positively related to mental health and, in particular, may offer a useful therapy for emotional distress.
In 2021, a Danish psychology review entitled “Are Long-Distance Walks Therapeutic?”, found long-distance walking may be appropriately used to counter some personal or emotional struggles.
In the same year, a study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology considered how long-distance walking influences reflection processes among middle-age and older adults. It was concluded this type of activity can be emotionally transformational.
Keep track and give to the fundraiser
You can keep track of the walk on Facebook by searching for “TraceysTrek” and on Instagram @traceystrekuk. To donate, see: Tracey’s Trek Fundraiser