Ex-soldier from Iron Acton taking on 150 mile trek for Lewis Hamilton's 'spirit angel'

In October of this year, Tom Auld and his brother Toby, 33, will be walking the Camino Portugues from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compostella in Spain.

The journey will take them four days with the mile breakdown showing they will cover 35 miles on day one, 48 on day two, 44 on day three and then finishing with the final 26 miles on the fourth day.

It is all to raise money for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity after his friend’s son died from a rare form of cancer, Ewing’s Sarcoma earlier in June of this year.

Harry Shaw was five-years-old when doctors gave him just one week to live.

Tom had completed his military training with Harry’s father James at Sandhurst and they had remained friends ever since.

Harry and his parents, James and Charlotte, raised well over £230,000 in the weeks before he died.

Harry’s story and battle became so popular that F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton sent his F1 car to his house, even dedicated his Madrid GP win to the boy that Tom described as ‘braver than brave’.

“He was a really confident, lovely boy,” he said.

“He loved going to school and playing rugby, he was a very active child.

“When the doctors and his family told him he needed to start chemotherapy he simply said ‘let’s just get it done’, that summed him up.

“After Harry died me and my brother thought we would see if we could do something.

“It is going to be a real challenge but we’ve been training.

“James and Charlotte have sent nice messages and hopefully we can raise some money in memory of Harry.

“Raising the money will help fund research in to Childhood Cancer and help the Harry’s of the future.

“Nobody can comprehend what losing a child is like but with his family raising the money that they have I think it has helped them.”

Tom will be taking on the challenge in early October, with money raised going to Harry’s Giant Pledge and the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.

His fundraising page can be found here.