EMINENT doctor Professor Lord Robert Winston, who is currently presenting the “Walking with Cavemen” series on TV spent a week accompanying a hundred women from all over Britain - among them was Mrs Bette McArdle from Merkinch - on a charity cycle challenge across Cuba last month.

The fund-raising challenge was in aid of the professor’s institute into research to improve the health of women and babies.
“It was no holiday - in fact it was jolly hard work,” said Mrs McArdle. “Apart from the months spent training for the trip, the women were scheduled to cover almost 250 miles in five days’ cycling.
“And that was in temperatures that sometimes reached the high 80’s. One day we actually covered 63 miles - further than many of us had ever actually done before. But if we thought we would have it easy the next day, we were wrong - though shorter, the route was, to say the least, undulating.
“Actually very few of us were cycle club members, and our ages ranged from 20 to 70. Many had quite heavy-duty family commitments, and yet they had somehow found the time to prepare for the trip.
“We had a tremendous back-up team, including a doctor and mechanics who repaired punctures before you got a chance to get your breath back!
“The Cuban landscape was very beautiful, the cities fascinating and the people were just brilliant - good-natured and friendly. When we rode through villages and small towns everyone turned out to see us. They waved and cheered - it was like being on the Tour de France. In the larger towns the traffic was stopped for us by a couple of cops on motorbikes with sidecars.
“It was quite an experience, but well worth the effort and I’m very grateful to all those who supported me, particularly Merkinch Enterprise who donated £200 to the cause and Merkinch Community Council who gave £50, not to mention many friends and colleagues who also chipped in.”