'I'm aged 84 and I'm leaving my home in Stourbridge to travel across Portugal on a pilgrimage in memory of my late husband and to raise funds for the sick'

Jan Drew will be walking 116 kilometres along the final stretch of the Camino Portugues (Portuguese Way), a pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, which features historical sites like UNESCO World Heritage cities, Roman ruins, and Manueline churches, offering a scenic journey through towns and countryside.

The 84-year-old will be joined on the walk, which will start at Tui in northern Portugal on Tuesday, September 23 and end 11 days later at the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, having passed through towns like O Porriño, Redondela, Arcade, Pontevedra, Caldas de Reis and Padrón, by her granddaughter Chloe and her partner Simon.

Ms Drew said the walk was a way of raising funds for Mary Stevens Hospice in Stourbridge and was also a chance to remember her husband Brian, a man she said she shared multiple long walks with and had dreamed of doing the pilgrimage together until his death in 2020.

She said: "We were together for 65 years and we used to do a lot of mountain walking together all over the world, walking in the Himalayas, Canada, Ecuador and parts of Europe, but he got a health condition which caused him to lose the use of his legs and arms and he was in Palliative care in lockdown, so I only got 20 minutes with him before he died.

"He still comes with me though as I carry some of his ashes with me and we'd been driving through Spain to France when we spotted these people on a path and asked them what they were doing, and they told us all about it.

"I'm a verger at St Mary's, so I'm into the spiritual thing, and we said that we'd do this walk one day, but circumstances took over and we never did, but Chloe asked me whether there was anything I'd never got to do with Brian and I mentioned this, so she said we were going to do it."

Ms Drew said the walk would see them stopping at places along the way and carrying every single thing they need with them, describing it as a proper pilgrimage, and said she was very excited to get going.

She said: "We fly out on Monday and I'm absolutely buzzing to get started and while how I feel at the end is anyone guess, I'm looking forward to getting going.

"There will be challenges as I've got a dodgy hip and can't hear very well, so I'll have to wear my hearing aids, but I've charged them up and I hope I'll be able to hear everyone."

Ms Drew said the funds would all go to Mary Stevens Hospice, with a prior target of £3,500 set to be surpassed, and said that it was a worthwhile cause and one that she hoped that, if needed, she'd be able to use, and said that she hoped she could inspire people her age to do something similar.

She said: "I know a lot of people who have benefitted from being able to use Mary Stevens and we wanted to be able to help them as getting funding is so difficult, so everything we get is going to make such a difference.

"Age is only a number and I have survived a perforated duodenal ulcer, where I died in the ambulance, but then came back, as well as surviving car crashes and even coming through cancer, so I hope I can inspire people.

"There is a finite time, but I say take every day as it comes, and as long as I am above ground and mobile, can get out of bed and dance to the bathroom, then I'm good to go."