River trip pupils remember classmate

9:00am Friday 13th June 2008

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NEARLY 20 teenagers will canoe 100km down the River Wye this weekend in memory of a Herefordshire youngster.

At the same age Bacton resident Laurie Engel died from a rare and aggressive form of cancer, 17 13-year-olds will spend three days and three nights boating and camping to raise funds for a charity set up in his honour.

They will join a group of 34 children from Abberley Hall boarding school near Worcester in completing various distances of the river after classmate Max Carleton-Smith suggested the challenge in commemoration of his former schoolfriend.

Led by teacher James Abbott pupils will start at Glasbury on Sunday and stop over in Preston-on-Wye and Holme Lacy before finishing in Ross-on-Wye on Tuesday.

Sponsorship is possible via the website for the Laurie Engel Fund, which is raising money for a new ward at Birmingham Childrens Hospital where he was treated, www.laurieengelfund.org