Cavern Club raise over £3000 for Strawberry Field

On Friday 1st November, James Clifford, Martin Quinn and Neil Brannan from The Cavern took on the mammoth challenge of running around the Strawberry Field garden for 26.2 hours to raise funds for our Steps to Work programme.

In April 2025, our friends from the Cavern will run London Marathon to raise money for Strawberry Field - and if that wasn't hard enough, they kicked off their fundraising by running in relay style for 26 hours and 12 minutes around our garden. To put that into perspective, James, Neil and Martin each ran for over 8 hours - the equivalent of TWO marathons on a course that is under 300m long. That is a lot of laps of the garden!

They set off from the patio outside the Imagine More café at 2.00pm on Friday afternoon, running the first few laps as a team. Neil was the first of the runners to go solo, running for an hour before Martin took over, followed by James. During this time, Steps to Craft met in the Bradbury Suite and designed posters to cheer the lads on.

When Strawberry Field closed for the evening, Major Allister Versfeld remained on site to keep the runner's company and show them some support when things got cold and dark. None of them were able to get much sleep, so if the running wasn't tiring enough, they were also sleep-deprived!

But that didn't stop them from running through the night. It was clear that giving up was not an option! Perhaps the only thing that kept them going was the promise of bacon butties in the morning and that with every hour that passed, they were an hour closer to finishing.

The lads had many visitors. Some to cheer them on by the sidelines and others to run a few laps with them! Colleagues from the Cavern came and ran, including Lili Stutz (who took these fantastic photos) and Clark Gilmour, who ran while playing his guitar! Adele Murphy, Team Manager of our Steps to Work programme, also came to do a few laps and show appreciation on behalf of the Steps at Strawberry Field team.

26 hours after the three runners set off, the challenge was nearly over. Family members, friends and Strawberry Field staff all came to cheer them on and see them finish. They ran (or rather, hobbled) the last 12 minutes together - surprisingly, still with smiles on their faces. Watching them cross the finish line (a piece of ribbon held by Major Kathy and Major Allister) was an emotional moment. 

At the time of writing, Neil, James and Martin have raised an incredible £3298 - and it's not over yet! The three of them will continue to fundraise until the London Marathon in April. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to James, Neil and Martin. We are truly humbled by your generosity and you will forever be regarded as Strawberry Field family.