Man completes 39 marathons for baby loss charity

A Shropshire man has completed weekly marathons in all 39 of England's historic counties to raise money for a charity close to his heart.

Olly Brown, from Shrewsbury, started on 28 December, and finished on 19 September in Norfolk.

He estimated that he has raised nearly £90,000 altogether for baby loss charity Tommy's - after he and his wife experienced a traumatic miscarriage in 2022.

"We're blown away really - people's generosity has been incredible, but hopefully the challenge and the cause has warranted it," he said.

"We had an incredible day on Saturday [when I finished], it was a really special day and nice to get the last one ticked off, a beautiful part of the world to be in... and we had a fantastic party celebrating afterwards."

Each week, he was joined by someone from the county he was visiting who had experienced pregnancy or baby loss.

Brown and his wife have since had a daughter, but he decided to take on the challenge after close friends also lost a baby.

He previously said that the 39-week challenge was his "best attempt at replicating the nine-month pregnancy journey, [while] acknowledging that not all pregnancies make it to the full 40 weeks".

He said he had been in close contact with Tommy's, which had told him the impact that his funds would have.

"When you start to look at it in real terms - 18 months of high end research for a project they've got on, or three years of a PhD student looking into specific causes - you start to look into the number and it's going to have a genuine real-world impact, and that's really satisfying for us," he said.

"I think Tommy's might want me to do it again next year, but I think that might have to wait."

He added that the charity had given him a place for the London Marathon in 2027.

For now, he said, it was time to rest.

"We're going on holiday for a couple of weeks, so that's priority number one, some time with the kids and the family... no major plans."

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