BRIDPORT performance poet Tom Rogers, will be doing a sponsored trek in Malawi in November in memory of his son Sam.

Twenty-five-year old Sam died two years ago while working as an English teacher in Vietnam.

Tom, 50, will be raising money for a charity Sam supported-WaterAid-and on his trek will visit a WaterAid project in Malawi.

Donations at Sam’s funeral also went to WaterAid and the charity kept in touch with Tom afterwards and told him about the trek.

This will be Tom’s first trek and he’s confessed to being a bit nervous but says it’s important to him to do it.

He said: “I see the trek as a continuation of my son’s legacy and an opportunity to reflect on that legacy while doing something positive for a very worthwhile cause.”

Tom said with the logistics and red tape of getting Sam’s body back and organising his funeral he felt he’d had no real time to mourn.

“You don’t go through much of a process of mourning while you are doing all that. You are too busy. Then life just carries on afterwards so I just wanted to put some time aside to mourn and reflect on him.”

He’s hoping to raise £3,500 of which £1,750 covers the actual cost of the trip, which Tom will pay himself.

He said: “Most of us live in relative luxury while there are still large areas of the world, including in Malawi, where the provision of clean water is a very pressing issue.”

In order to get the fundraising off to a start Tom will be organising a spoken word event in Bridport on June 11 at 12pm, venue to be confirmed.

The newly appointed Bard of Exeter, Rob Casey, along with the other founders of Bridport’s Apothecary night which is held once a month at The Beach and Barnicott on South Street have all offered their services. It is also rumoured that a Somerset Maugham award winning novelist may also be involved.

Meanwhile, the owners of Magic Oxygen Publishing in Lyme Regis, Tracy and Simon West, who run a poetry night called Vittles and Verse, will be using their own event in Lyme at The Gallery Cafe in Broad Streetfrom 7pm on June 11 to raise money for Tom’s trek.

If anyone is interested in attending the event or would like to sponsor Tom’s WaterAid Trek in Malawi go to facebook.com/TomTreksMalawi which is linked to Tom’s just fundraiser page justgiving.com/Thomas-Rogers1 Sam, who had a philosophy degree, travelled through Thailand and Cambodia before a motorcycle trip across Vietnam where he planned to marry his girlfriend.

He died after a night of celebration with friends in a hotel when he drank what he thought was a bottle of water in a washroom.

Tom said: “It turned out to be a bottle of cleaning fluid. He drank from it but realised something was wrong. His friends got him to hospital as quickly as he could but they were not able to do anything.”