Marathon mission for RAF Cosford Museum

The Mayor and Mayoress of Wolverhampton have officially launched a series of marathons that aim at raising £100,000 for a well-known museum.

Robin Southwell and Alan Coppin (Two Trustees at RAF Cosford Museum) are walking five Marathons in five days to London to raise money for the RAF Centenary Programme. In Picture L>R: Mayor of Wolverhampton arrives to cheer them on L>R: Robin Southwell, Margaret Findlay, Barry Findlay Mayor of Wolverhampton), Nick Sanders, Maggie Appleton (Chief Ex of Musuem) and Alan Coppin.

The launch took place on Monday at RAF Cosford and saw Councillor Barry and Margaret Findlay set two so-called 'marathon men' on their way to raising the funds to transform the museum.

Alan Coppin and Robin Southwell OBE will now walk nearly 130 miles between the Museum’s two public sites, from Cosford in the West Midlands to Colindale in northwest London.

The pair set off at 9am on Monday morning and began with a 30 mile walk to Solihull. After an evening stop over, they continued the walk on Tuesday, walking 26 miles to Radbourn, Warwickshire.

Today (WEDS), the pair are due to walk 31 miles to Winslow, Buckinghamshire, where they will be joined by Air Chief Marshal, Sir Glenn Torpy who is the chair of trustees. Tonight, they will stop over at RAF Halton before continuing tomorrow (THURS) to walk 26 miles to Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

The duo's final stop over will be at RAF High Wycombe, which is the headquarters of Air Command. On Friday, the last leg of the journey will see them walk 16 miles to the finishing-line at RAF Museum, London.

The money raised will go towards the £26 million transformation of the visitor experience at RAF Museum’s London site and new exhibitions at Cosford.

The new exhibitions will be aimed at exploring the first 100 years of the RAF and new aircraft displays which are already underway.

For information about the fundraising walk and the RAF Museum’s Centenary plans, visit www.rafmuseum.org.