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Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox thanks farmers for support during BBC Children in Need challenge

Presenter completes gruelling five-day run to raise more than £7.6m for annual charity event

clock • 2 min read
DJ and farmer's daughter Sara Cox who has raised more than £7m for BBC Children in Need
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DJ and farmer's daughter Sara Cox who has raised more than £7m for BBC Children in Need

Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox gave a special ‘thank you' to all the farmers who came out to support her during her five-day, 135-mile Children in Need Challenge.

The 50-year-old livestock farmer's daughter from Little Lever, near Bolton paid tribute to members of the industry as she chatted to fellow Radio 2 presenter, Breakfast Show host Scott Mills.

Ms Cox said: "This is the hardest thing I have ever done... I just want to say thank you to everyone - all the farmers who stopped work to come and say ‘hi'... it was just incredible."

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Hundreds of supporters lined the route which saw Ms Cox undertake five marathons across five days, starting from the wild beauty of the Kielder Forest on the Scottish borders and finishing in Pudsey in Leeds.

Storm Claudia

Amid the rain and winds of Storm Claudia the broadcaster and author has raised more than £7.6 million ahead of the main fundraising event which starts on BBC1 at 7pm tonight.

It is not the first time Ms Cox has remembered her roots as her novel, Way Back, centres on Josie, the daughter of a Lancashire farmer who finds herself falling out of love with both her suburban London life and her husband.

READ MORE: Prince William plays leading role with Clarkson's Farm stars to highlight farming mental health

"She [Josie] is just feeling a little bit rudderless and she realises she has to go back to the village where she was raised and the farm where she was born to make sense of where she is in her life now," Ms Cox said while promoting its publication.

The mother-of-three also shared her childhood experiences of life on Grundy Fold Farm a 40-acre tenanted cattle farm in her memoir Till the Cows Come Home.

  • is on BBC 1 from 7pm.

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