Taking on the challenge of hiking three of Britain’s highest mountains in the space of 24 hours is not something to be done lightly, but one St Margarets resident has a very personal reason to push his body to the physical limit.

Richard Lomas, 35, of St Margarets Road, will be making his way up Mount Snowden in Wales, Scafell Pike in England, and Scotland’s Ben Nevis on Friday, September, 2, as part of the three peaks challenge in memory of former colleague Francesco Anstey who died from a brain tumour earlier this year.

Mr Lomas said: “Francesco was just an honourable, motivated young guy. He was an absolute charmer and you could have a really good laugh with him.

“Obviously doing this we can’t help Francesco but it is about awareness and to provide general awareness of other strains of brain tumours [would be worth it].”

The social media manager, has been training every other day at Movement3 gym in St Margarets pushing himself to reach peak fitness before he takes on the tough walking challenge.

Mr Lomas, who worked at Firebrand Digital with Francesco before the 23-year-old’s death on Thursday, May 12, 2011, hopes to raise awareness of the dangers of brain tumours by taking on the challenge.

Walking in groups of eight, Mr Lomas, former Firebrand colleagues and Francesco’s friends and family are hoping to raise more than £5,000 in Francesco’s honour to be donated to the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust.

Mr Lomas said: “It is a bloody hard challenge but at the moment about 20 people have already signed up.

“Some people are doing just one peak and that really opens up the opportunity to really smash our £5,000 target.”

Francesco was taken to hospital after feeling under the weather and was found to have a rare and particularly strong form of brain tumour, despite seeming to make an initial recovery his medical condition swiftly got worse and there was nothing the medical team could do.

Funds raised from the 24-hour walk will go to the Dickinson trust and there will be a raffle, complete with on the spot prizes, at the St Margarets Tavern, on Tuesday, August 16, prior to the three peaks walk, to help fund travel and equipment costs.

Mr Lomas has been keeping people up to date with his training via Facebook and Twitter.

To follow his progress visit facebook.com/FrancescoAnsteyTPC?sk=wall#!/FrancescoAnsteyTPC?sk=wall or twitter.com/#!/fa3pc.

To sponsor the walkers visit justgiving.com/francescoansteytpc.