{"id":188702,"date":"2025-06-16T10:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188702\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T10:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:07:09","slug":"horwich-childhood-friends-cycling-western-front-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188702\/","title":{"rendered":"Horwich childhood friends cycling Western Front Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Colin Higham, Kevan Ball and Rob Taylor are in the middle of cycling\u00a0634 miles along the Western Front Way this month, with Russell Jones providing support.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The trail\u00a0follows the historic frontline of the First World War, from the French-Swiss border to the beaches of Belgium.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The quartet reflected during a poignant moment, stood by the grave of Richard Nelson in the middle of rural France, hundreds of miles away from his home on Lee Lane, Horwich.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  They said: &#8220;We thought this challenge was one of the hardest things we would have ever done, but then we met an English lady in our hostel who was walking from Canterbury to Rome, which put our task into perspective.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   alt=\"The lads at the grave of Richard Nelson\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>The lads at the grave of Richard Nelson (Image: Submitted) &#8220;Then we thought no matter how tough either challenge was, they pale in comparison to what those lads faced along this front in the First World War.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;On Monday we all stood together in a graveyard in the middle of rural France next to the remains of a lad who lives in a butcher&#8217;s shop at 201 Lee Lane, Horwich, a shop we have all walked past hundreds of times.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/25141260.rivington-blackrod-schoolmates-cycling-western-front-way\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more: Bolton schoolfriends&#8217; epic journey to pay tribute to those who died in the Great War\u00a0<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/25223997.westhoughton-man-host-second-skullfest-music-festival\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more: &#8216;Successful&#8217; charity music festival set to return to Bolton<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/25224393.free-cat-health-clinic-rspca-walkden-shopping-centre\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more: Free cat welfare clinic to take place at shopping centre<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;As we laid a Rivington and Blackrod School pennant by his headstone, we reflected on just how thankful we should be for the lives we now lead.&#8221;\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   alt=\"The grave of Richard Nelson\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>The grave of Richard Nelson (Image: Submitted) The quartet are also raising money for three\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/25141260.rivington-blackrod-schoolmates-cycling-western-front-way\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/25141752.bolton-teenager-raises-2-500-macmillan-cancer-support\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">charities<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; the Royal British Legion, Children in Need and St Ann&#8217;s Hospice. To donate, click here:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/justgiving.com\/crowdfunding\/alan-parkinson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/justgiving.com\/crowdfunding\/alan-parkinson<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  As of Friday, June 16, they have completed 566\u00a0miles of the journey and have raised \u00a32,455.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  For more information on the Western Front Way, visit the Western Front Association&#8217;s website:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernfrontassociation.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.westernfrontassociation.com\/<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The quartet, who will all turn 65 this year,\u00a0met when they were schoolboys at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theboltonnews.co.uk\/news\/24850886.rivington-blackrod-high-school-proposes-admission-change\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rivington and Blackrod School<\/a>, and will visit the graves of 16 of the 24 young men from their old school who died during the war.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Colin Higham was struck by the idea after reading The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front Way by Anthony Seldon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colin Higham, Kevan Ball and Rob Taylor are in the middle of cycling\u00a0634 miles along the Western Front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-188702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114692492049981612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}