Lloyd Scott, better known as the man in the vintage diving suit who has raised over £5 million in his 30-year charity fundraising career, is taking on his final charity challenge.
Wanting to finish on the definition of a high, Lloyd Scott will step into his famous 130lbs deep-sea diving suit one final time to tackle the Three Peak Challenge, raising money for The Lord’s Taverners on the 23-mile, 3064 metre ascent.
Lloyd will be climbing Britain’s three tallest mountains in Ben Nevis, Scafell Peak and Mount Snowden over an eight-day period, to complete a charity fund-raising career that began back in 1987 with the London Marathon.
Lloyd is perhaps most famous for breaking the world record for taking the longest recorded time to complete a marathon, when he finished the London Marathon wearing his famous deep-diving suit in 2002. His marathon run spanned five days, eight hours, 29 minutes and 46 seconds.
This however wasn’t the first time Lloyd took on the London Marathon, with him tackling the race back in 1987 while fighting a life-threatening illness. That year, Lloyd was diagnosed with Leukaemia and his siblings, despite being a perfect bone marrow match for one another, weren’t a close enough pairing for him.
Eventually a partner was found, in an event Lloyd described as “like meeting a brother I never knew I had. I’m now godfather to his son and we still meet to play cricket!”
Just three weeks before his transplant, Lloyd tackled the Marathon for the first time, doing it “with the aim of showing people that despite having a life-threatening illness, one could make the most of any situation.”
11 months later, despite the transplant almost proving fatal, Lloyd was back on the start line for the London Marathon, and his fundraising career truly began. The challenges started to become ever more incredible, with an Everest marathon, an underwater one in the depths of Loch Ness, and what he still describes as his toughest challenge ever, cycling a Penny Farthing across Australia.
A career this incredible deserves a suitable end, with Lloyd stating, “I needed the finality of saying an event was my last and I was going out on top. The last I had done was the Malden mud race in 2014. It took 7 guys tying a rope around me to get me over the line, so I wasn’t going out on that.”
And this challenge, 23-miles in three stages, with a total ascent of 3064 metres, is a perfect way to do that, but not just because he’ll literally be ending on a high: “knowing that my family can be there at the end, and that both my boys and brother can come along means so much. Sadly, my dad passed away in February, but I’ll have his red fleece that he wore on all his adventures with me.”
All the money raised by Lloyd in his final challenge will go to the Lord’s Taverners, the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charity. The Taverners holds a special place in Lloyd’s heart, having been a member for 15 years, but also from his own personal experiences of life without sport.
Lloyd said: “When I had leukaemia, there was a period where I couldn’t play any sport. It’s only when you have something, and it’s taken away from you and that you realise how important it is. So, the thought of children out there that may not experience the thrill, excitement, enjoyment of sport really resonates with me. I couldn’t think of anyone I wanted to do this for more.”
To donate to Lloyd’s fundraising efforts and to take part in the campaign, sign-up using this link – https://donate.giveasyoulive.com/fundraising/lloydscotts3peakschallenge
You can also support the charity through social media, whether you can afford to donate or not, by sharing the above links and encouraging sign ups and tagging @lordstaverners.
