Gareth Jones, Matt Piper and Lloyd Jones are three young men off on a mission to take in as many European Capital Cities as possible on their charity 14 day round trip to Moscow, Russia! The charity tour for Cancer Research UK is planned to take place on the 4th of May 2007.

We caught up with them to find out more about their plans and why they decided to do it...

Q:Can you tell us about yourselves, ages, what you do, how you all met:

A: Here's the info on the team:

I'm Gareth Jones, age 26, married with one child. I'm involved in signal engineering on the railway (I'm a signal section manager at Feltham working for Network Rail).

Matt Piper is 26 years old, has a partner and one child. He works for the Echo (our local paper) as an advertising guru! Matt and myself have known each other since we were 4 (we met at playshool), we've been best mates ever since.  

Lloyd Jones has the misfortune of being my brother and is 23 years old..... he took great interest in the idea of the tour and hence we got him on board. Lloyd works for Hampshire county council in payrol and personel.

Q:Please tell us more about your camper, also who owns it, how long has it been owned, any interesting stories to do with it.

A:Here's the lowdown on our rusty old camper.

When me and Matt originally concieved the sponsored tour idea we didn't really have any specific vehicle in mind.... the only specific was that it had to be a bit of a banger (it makes the tour a bit more of a challenge). Once Lloyd got involved we worked out it might be worth getting something large that would be ideal for camping! What better than a VW camper! I've always loved campers and like a bit of restoration, hence the next day (mid September this year) I went out and brought the rusty 76 bay window that is residing in my garage at present! (I'm a bit impulsive!)

The specifics of the van are:
1976 bay window VW microbus, 2000cc engine, blue lower/white upper, loads of rust hence no MOT! In need of a fair bit of work.

We are currently looking to find a restoration company or garage to help us out.... we are fast running out of time and hence we need her to be fixed up over the winter. We don't want her perfect, all we want is a roadworthy and reliable van to get us to as many cities as possible!! We are hoping that someone might come forward who see's this article.... we will be more than willing to publicise any company that can help if they can give us reasonable rates to restore the van!!!

Our back up plan is to buy an alternative bay window camper if we fail to get out current one on the road in time. Regardless, we will be doing the tour in a bay camper that will be the oldest member of the team!

Q: How did you get started on this idea to do the tour? Why Cancer Research UK?

Myself and Matt came up with the idea whilst down the pub (all our best ideas are concieved in the pub!). We both fancied getting out there and doing something good whilst having a bit of fun.... hence the sponsored road trip idea was born. Lloyd was brought on board as we felt we'd do better with 3 drivers (he's currently learning to drive specifically for the tour).

We picked Cancer Research UK because we have all had the misfortune of having friends and family who've been affected by cancer. My wifes mother died from breast cancer when my wife was a child, Matts mum was diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago and has managed over come it and is now on the mend. Most recently we had a very close friends mother die very suddenly due to cancer which was a shock to us all.

Cancer seems to be something which will affect everyone in someway during thier life, whether it be a friend or a relative being diagnosed or being diagnosed with it yourself. That is why we are supporting Cancer Research UK, the money we raise will help to fund valuable research into future treatments and possible cures.

Q:What are your hopes for the tour?

A:We hope to reach sponsorship of at least £5000. We haven't pushed too hard on the sponsorship front yet but we still arn't too far off hitting £1000. Closer to the tour we hope to drive round in the camper trying to drum up sponsorship at car boot sales and car shows ,etc.

We are planning our tour route carefully, obviously trying to take in as many capital cities as possible. We reckon on getting to at least 20 capital cities..... obviously we are hoping reliability won't hinder us to much but you never know with a 30 year old camper van!

Q:Tell us how people can best support what you are doing?

A:Well, the obvious way to support us is to sponsor us. This can be done through our website (www.charitytour.co.uk) or through justgiving (www.justgiving.com/charitytour). If people wish to sponsor in other ways please contact us at my email address ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ).

The other big thing we currently need is help with the restoration of the camper. We have money set aside but need someone willing to take the job on and get the van roadworthy pretty quickly. Any help with this would be massively appreciated.... please contact me at the email address ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) or ring me on 07725 721 596. As previously stated we will be more than willing to publicise anyone who helps with the restoration. 

We would like to wish the boys success on their tour, and hopefully we can hear how things went when they return. So please support them and give generously to Cancer Research UK through them. If you are a VW specialist mechanic, why not feel good about yourselves and help these guys out. We will even run a news feature or article on your restoration of the boys van to feature on this website.

Good luck lads and safe journey!