Evening Mail teams will Go for Jo in tribute to colleague

Every April, year after year, Jo would meticulously plan out the newspaper’s coverage of the annual events, ensuring they received coverage fitting of the effort, endeavour and passion they inspire in their organisers and participants alike.

Every day she could be heard on the phone chatting with participants, laughing at their tales of walks long past and encouraging them ahead of walks still to come.

Every story she told was moving, inspiring, and written with the care and sensitivity she brought to everything she did.

“Jo loved the K2B,” her husband Matt remembers. “Both as a youngster, when she completed it several times, and as an Evening Mail journalist – soaking up the atmosphere, loving the camaraderie of the event and reporting on all the heart-warming tales of people taking on the tough challenge for causes close to their heart.”

With this year’s event just hours away, there will be a new team with their own tale to tell out on the course.

The Go for Jo team – three teams, to be precise – will walk in memory of the beloved Barrow journalist of 17 years.

Jo died in August, aged 38, five-and-a-half years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Since then Jo’s Appeal has raised more than £27,000 for her chosen charities: the Furness General Hospital oncology unit, St Mary’s Hospice and the Eve Appeal national women’s cancer charity.

And come Saturday, the Go for Jo team members will step out proudly having spent months training and fundraising in her name.

“It’s fantastic to see so many people taking on the might of the K2B and C2B in aid of Jo’s Appeal,” Matt says. “The whole event resonated with Jo’s warm and caring personality and her sense of fun and adventure.

“I know she would be thrilled and amused by seeing so many people wearing Go for Jo T-shirts with her smiling face emblazoned across them as they trek through the Lake District – one of her favourite places on earth.”