A TREKKER fulfilled a lifetime's ambition and walked along the Great Wall of China after a moment of fate on the anniversary of her mother's death.

And Kerry Kelly raised almost £10,000 for the British Heart Foundation with the charity walk.

It was on the 10th anniversary of the death of her mother Kathleen Shorrock, from heart disease, that Kerry spotted a poster advertising the trek.

And the former Blackburn Pleckgate High School pupil said completing it was a dream come true.

"I was inspired to do something in my mum's memory and to raise money for such a worthy cause," she said.

"It also enabled me to fulfil a lifetime ambition to go to China. As a teenager I had been obsessed with China and remember mum driving me to Liverpool's Chinatown.

"I saved money from my first Saturday job in Blackburn's Boots' to buy a traditional Chinese silk dress."

Kerry left Blackburn at 18 to train as a primary school teacher, going on to work in Leicester, Toronto and Hillingdon before settling in Farnham, Surrey with her husband Martin, to raise their three daughters.

Among the British Heart Foundation's 25 trekkers, who completed six hours walking each day, she met Bolton-born Claire Walsh. And British Heart Foundation's events co-ordinator, Emma Taylor, comes from Clitheroe!

Kerry was also joined on the trip by two fellow Farnham mums, Mandy Elstow and Paula Godden.

The girls struggled to find steep and challenging terrain for their training in Surrey and Kerry admitted the Ribble Valley would have provided a good start. She said: "We had been told that some of the five day trek would be on unrestored sections of the wall and that the trip would not have been suitable for vertigo sufferers.

"But we were stunned by the sheer drops and the crumbling terrain of the Gubeiko and Jinshanling regions.

"The views were worth the gruelling climbs though.

"And it was incredibly rewarding to look back at the end of each day over the miles of wall behind us that we had already walked and the many watchtowers that we had passed through."

Kerry and her two friends have so far raised nearly £10,000 for the British Heart Foundation, with a variety of projects which included a sponsored skip and a "Champagne and Shopping" evening.