My wife is always in my memory

People keep saying Smudge Smith is walking in memory of his wife.

He is 94. He lives at Frizes Leasowe, a Housing Plus retirement scheme in Ketley Bank, Telford. On 3 July he set himself a hundred miles before his 95th birthday on 14 October, for Severn Hospice, which cared for Margaret after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She died there, at Bicton, in 2007.

He finished the hundred on 14 August, two months early, averaging about three miles a morning in the heat and leaving just after six. By the time Andy Giddings spoke to him for BBC Shropshire at the end of August he was on 135 and looking at 200. The rain had arrived. “It came down like stair rods.”

His son David said that once Smudge says he will do something, he will. His grandson Rowan said he knows his limits.

“A lot of people say it's in memory of my wife because she passed away there, but my wife is always in my memory and anybody who's ever met her, she'll be in their memory, because she was lovely.”

He and Margaret were gardeners. Their beds were known locally for seasonal colour. They played bowls at Maddox Social Club. He had worked at the Aga foundry in Ketley, at Sankeys, and at COD Donnington, and had lived in the area since 1956. After she died he raised money for the hospice, for the haematology department that treated her, and for other local causes including Mind, Guide Dogs and Shropshire Talking Newspapers. The hospice's own write-up of this challenge has him out at half past six, on one of five routes chosen because they are not too hilly, meeting the odd dog walker.

His JustGiving page currently shows a little over £2,200, with Gift Aid on top. The BBC put the total above £3,000. Either figure is a great deal of walking. Neither figure runs a hospice.

Severn Hospice cares for families across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Mid Wales. The care is free to them. The charity says it must raise £2 of every £3 it spends, and that last year that work reached about 3,000 families. Its own figures put the daily cost of care at a little over £25,000. Nicky Green, a community fundraiser there, told the BBC that without people like Smudge they cannot carry on.

Claire Przybylski-Garry, who works at Frizes Leasowe, has been organising a raffle around the same page. Family and neighbours have joined him on stretches of pavement. Another resident, Steph, has walked with him more than once.

He may keep walking until 14 October. He may not. “We'll see what happens, if I feel like it yes, I'll do some more walking.”