A determined mum has dedicated herself to helping venues forced to close due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Gillian Ashcroft-Smith, 36, from Tuebrook set herself the target of walking 130km as a way to raise money for the struggling arts sector.
Suffering from Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder and Fibromyalgia, walking long distances is not easy for Gillian.
She said: “Someone without disabilities would have been able to do this in two weeks, whereas it was quite a challenge for me because I have bad fatigue and high pain levels.”
Gillian, who works as an education demonstrator at National Museums Liverpool, says her life revolves around the arts.
She said: “The arts are my life. I studied Community Art at LIPA, I have a career in the arts and I met my husband through them. It’s part of our family life.”
She decided to take action when she saw that lockdown restrictions were starting to ease but many music venues and theatres were still being forced to stay shut.
She said: “I was hearing from a lot of my friends in the arts that redundancies were being made and
venues were closing down. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. I had to help."
Gillian made it her aim to walk 100 metres for each of the estimated 1,300 active theatres in the UK September 20, which marked six months from theatres being ordered to close by the government.
During her walks, Gillian took her youngest daughter, who was born nine weeks before lock down, along with her for moral support.
She said: “I usually would have to walk with a walking stick but her pram acted as a walking aid to help me with my mobility.”
Along the way she passed many of Liverpool’s most loved locations.
She said: “Some days were a real struggle and I could only manage a 1k walk around Newsham or Stanley Park because my limbs would be aching and I’d feel so tired and sore.
"I did hit a point where I thought I’m not going to be able to manage this.”
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Gillian reached out to her Facebook and Instagram, where she had been updating supporters with daily posts, about wanting to give up but was instantly met with support and words of encouragement from people telling her to keep going.
She said: “A lot of people don’t realise my condition as it’s one of those invisible conditions that people don’t often understand but it was great to get the support.”
Gillian managed to complete her walk in 77 days with her final walk finishing exactly as planned on September 20.
She said: “I am quite proud of myself that I managed to do it. The individual walks were quite cathartic especially as during lockdown I wasn’t able to manage my conditions very well because I wasn’t able to go to physiotherapy and make sure my body was moving."
So far Gillian has managed to raise £1,010 out of her £1,300 target. To help Gillian reach her goal you can donate or find out more information about the charities involved here.
