Pink Ladies’ Tractor Run returns to smash fundraising goal

A convoy of 105 tractors took part in this year’s Pink Ladies’ Tractor Run, which has raised more than £750,000 for Cancer Research UK since 2004.

The popular road run returned on Sunday 4 July, after missing a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the tractors travelled through Norfolk and Suffolk, cheered on by socially distanced crowds.

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Organised by Annie Chapman, the annual run started at Thorpe Abbotts airfield and passed through Brockdish, Upper Weybread, Harleston, Pulham St Mary and Langmere Green.

The online donations for this year’s run are still pouring in, with the total raised for Cancer Research UK’s breast cancer campaign totalling more than £30,000.

The Pink Ladies have this year surpassed their target of raising £750,000 since the initiative began 17 years ago, and are now eyeing £1m.

LIzzie Sibson and Lynsey Wright © Jonathan Slack

Money helps research

Ms Chapman said: “We’ve already raised more than £750,000 because of all the online donations. We are so very nearly at £1million. I’m hoping this year we will get up to £800,000.

“Everyone knows someone who has had cancer and the support means so much because all we can do is raise money to help with research. What else can we do?

“It is very special this year because we are coming to the end of the pandemic and we had to cancel last year’s run. To get out with other people has been stunning and the effort made has been tremendous.

“Harleston was incredible, I was choked up driving through the town. People were cheering from one end of the town to the other, and in villages, laybys and gardens along the route.”

© Jonathan Slack

New drivers

Ms Chapman thanked everyone who helped run the event and said it was a large team effort.

This year more than 30 women new to the run took part, including the beat manager for South Norfolk rural crime, PC Sue Matthews – on a police tractor.

She said: “I saw the run in 2019 and thought I’d love to give it a go – and it’s been absolutely brilliant.”

Lynne Ainge who travelled from Ireland to take part said: “There were more people watching and the clapping and thumbs up made me feel so emotional.

“It was 20 years ago last week that my mother died of cancer, it was like an anniversary, I cried all the way through Harleston, I was trying to laugh and cry at the same time.”