Widow vows to sleep rough for SIX MONTHS to raise cash for homeless charity in Milton Keynes

Ruth Legh-Smith will spend every night until September outside - not even using a tent because she considers that "cheating".

Instead she's planned a sleeping system comprising a sleeping bag, a £2 charity shop blanket, a tarpaulin made into a sleeping bag cover, a hood made from rubble sacks, and two insulated windscreen covers,

And for the entire six months, her only baggage will be in a rucksack belonging to her late husband Richard, who died unexpectedly last year.

The mammoth sleepout is in memory of Richard, with the dual aim of raising money for the Milton Keynes Winter Night Shelter charity

Because of the Covid-19 situation, Ruth will be sleeping in the back garden of family initially. But if the threat subsides over the next six months she will travel the UK.

"The way in which I have decided to support the charity is a fitting tribute to Richard and how we lived life together. Richard and I led what you might call an unconventional life, mostly on boats, and never feeling ‘at home’ in a house.

"Whenever we were based in the UK the aim was to sail for six months of the year, Our days of travelling and sailing mean I have a wide network of people I can visit, and

indeed doing so in the wake of Richard’s passing will be beneficial to me personally as I begin to figure out life without him.”

Volunteering at the Winter Night Shelter helped Ruth carry on with day to day life after her husband died.

" I am taking baby steps into my new life," she said. "Volunteering for the Winter Night Shelter Milton Keynes is one of those steps."

Ruth's undertaking comes at a time when the charity’s major fundraising event of the year, the annual Sponsored Sleep Out, due to take place on 27 th March, had to be postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 crisis.

You can donate to Ruth's JustGiving page here.

And you can follow her progress via her Facebook page called 'Ruth's 6-month Sleep Out for the Winter Night Shelter MK’.

Meanwhile last month the shelter closed after being open since the beginning of November, Sadly, the coronavirus crisis meant it had to close 11 days early.

During the course of this season, it accommodated 81 rough sleepers (73 men and eight women). One in six guests were in paid work of some kind, but still without a roof over their heads.

"By the end of the season we had managed to assist 41 guests into longer-term accommodation and enable 22 guests to return home, and had enabled a number of guests into employment opportunities," said charity chair Richard Wightman,

He said: "This is not the way we wished to end the season, and there has been constant tension between weighing up the risks to both our volunteers and guests as the public health situation has worsened. For some time now our welfare team have been working extremely hard to place guests into safe longer-term accommodation as a matter of urgency.

"We continued as long as we could, on the good will and altruism of our amazing volunteers, knowing that simply closing our doors and turning guests back onto the streets with no onward

provision was not an option, particularly when many of the usual places they seek help or refuge were beginning to close.”

The charity has thanked transport and logistics company Kuehne + Nagel who partnered with them to provide jobs for guests.

To find out more about the work of the Winter Night Shelter Milton Keynes visit www.winternightsheltermk.com