Dunmow cricket coach ready to pedal to Amsterdam
Hugh Parmeter - Credit: Archant
Cricket coach Hugh Parmenter, is planning to get on his bike in June and ride to Amsterdam.
He will be one of over 300 cyclists, male and female, who are part of the Men United Campaign run by Prostate Cancer UK.
The event, starting at the Velodrome at the Olympic Stadium in London on June 3, is to raise awareness that men aged over 55 need to get checked out for the cancer. The sponsored cyclists will also raise money for the charity.
It is being supported by football teams and taking part are England legends Viv Anderson and Terry Butcher as well as the former captain of West Ham Ladies, Stacey Little.
Mr Parmenter, 63, coaches young cricketers in Dunmow and was a coach in Saffron Walden until 2010.
He will represent Derby on the cycle ride because Richard Keogh, who plays for Derby and the Republic of Ireland, will be his son Chris’s best man at his wedding just the week before he sets off. Keogh has donated a signed Derby shirt to be auctioned for the charity.
Mr Parmenter from Flitch Green, a retired postman who delivered the mail in Dunmow, Felsted and Stebbing, and who previously worked in electronics, is himself a prostate cancer survivor. He was diagnosed in January 2014.
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He said: “Because my cancer was caught early, I had brachytherapy, a less invasive treatment. If this ride persuades one more person to get tested and saves one more life, it will have been well worth it.”
The route will be 145 miles, cycling from Stratford to Brentwood and Colchester to reach Harwich, taking the ferry to the Hook of Holland and finishing at the Ajax Stadium in Amsterdam.
Mr Parmenter has been raising money to help fight cancer for some years, running the London Marathon in 1992 and 1994 after his father-in-law and a friend were killed by the disease.
Meanwhile, he and some other senior men have challenged the Ladies of Elsenham Golf Club to play a match to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK on March 24.
Mr Parmenter is hoping to raise £1,000. To donate go to www.justgiving.com/william-hugh-parmenter.
