Matts vs Greggs

MattsvGreggs

Going away to university, how do you keep in contact with your friends? I asked myself this when I realised I wasn’t seeing these people every day, being in the same lessons and all doing the same things. I worked in Beijing while they studied in the UK; I found myself doing things I’d never done before, like sending postcards or writing letters at Christmas. In a few treasured (and expensive) phone calls, we would always come back to the same question: what would we do when back in the North East? By Matthew Bradbury (15-17).

Matthew Bradbury (15-17), Matthew Clark (08-17) and Matthew Hutton (09-17) at various stages of the run A t RGS, most weeks we would go out running together, and during exam season this was the only time we ever got out of the School Library. During those phone calls we decided this would be a good tradition to continue whilst away. I’d missed stotties and the company of my best friends in equal measure, so we decided that running around all of the Greggs in Newcastle would be a laugh. By the time we realised that it was a marathon distance, we had already told too many people to back out. We also realised this was an opportunity to do some good and started raising money for the Greggs Foundation Hardship Fund.

That was it really, that was how an offhand suggestion managed to get quite so out of hand. We got in contact with the local press to try and get more publicity (as a means of raising more donations for the charity) for the run and we found they were all very happy to talk to us. I was being made to consider my relationship with Greggs in a new way, each person wanting a weirder fact or some jokey titbit to fit into their article. Never before have I been made to consider my favourite Greggs (the one by Central Station, as it’s the surest reminder you’ve finally arrived home –beaten only by seeing the bridges from your train carriage window); or favourite Greggs food or any other Greggs related stories. It turns out one of us had even taken a girl on a first date to a Greggs!

We were all drastically underprepared for the run, completing it in 6 hours 40 minutes which the BBC charitably rounded to 6 hours. We visited each one of the 29 Greggs in Newcastle, excluding any that were south of the Tyne or made the route look less like a squirrel. We, at a minimum, got a selfie at each for the run — stopping to fill up our water bottles and eat sausage rolls at the rest. The shop staff were always lovely and their desire to chat was a great excuse for a rest! Matt Clark found a, ‘train for a marathon in 30 days’ website, and after having done four days of training he felt sure he was ready — he told me afterwards this included three rest days!

A couple of days afterwards, the Foundation Manager from the Greggs Foundation emailed us a thank you, sending us the stories of those we’d helped with the money — it was incredibly moving. A laugh, something to see friends again, something done to be a good story, had raised over £1,800 for the Hardship Fund. I’d read the website and knew we’d be, ‘providing grants to people in extreme financial need in the North East’, but the distance in those words meant I didn’t see quite what we were doing. Then I read people’s stories and realised what the support people had given us meant, how this ludicrous run had helped lives.

We’ll all go off to university soon, but the Greggs Foundation will still be raising money and people in the North East will still be living in poverty.

Map showing the ‘squirrel’ route taken by the Matts –including all 29 Greggs in Newcastle

“We’ll all go off to university soon, but the Greggs Foundation will still be raising money and people in the North East will still be living in poverty.”

Please consider donating to this worthwhile cause, by going to www.justgiving.com fundraising/the-matts or write a cheque made out to The Greggs Foundation and send it to the Development Office to be forwarded on. Thank you.