A daring Basingstoke mum dipped out of her comfort zone by swimming the Thames to raise money for her daughter.
Rachel Marke, 33, from Winklebury, joined hundreds of other hardy swimmers on Saturday at the Great London Swim.
Clad in wetsuits Rachel and pals Paula Read, Carol Griffin, and Leigh Walker swam the chilly one-mile course through London’s Royal Victoria docks.
The day marked the end of months of fundraising for charity Anna’s Challenges, which will buy Airway Clearance System for Basingstoke and North Hants Hospital.
“It is a weird feeling being in the middle of the Thames swimming along,” she said. “You feel very exposed out there in the river with a lot of people watching and cheering.
“We had a chance to acclimatise to the water but it still is murky and brown and very chilly. It was still very nerve racking at the beginning.”
The charity was set up by Rachel in January this year to help her two-year-old daughter Anna, who suffers from cystic fibrosis.
As previously reported in the Observer, the mum-of-two aimed to raise £7,000 to buy the life changing machine. And last month the charity reached its target, but a determined Rachel said the fundraising will not stop there.
She said: “Since I set up the Anna’s Challenges bank account it has only taken a few months to reach our target, which is phenomenal. I never even dreamed that we would do it, and this quickly. We have grown from strength to strength and become a full-blown charity.
“The CF team at the hospital have passed around a wish list of things to help the kids and parents so that is next on our list.”
Rachel said the organisation plans to buy the new machine within the next few weeks.
The system uses an air pump attached to a vest that vibrates at high speed, clearing the lungs of sticky mucus.
