Walking through fire: A fundraising journey begins

Morag Kitson

I have committed to raising £5,500 for Tŷ Hafan, a Welsh charity supporting the families of terminally ill children, by completing a series of events culminating in hiking the Salkantay Trail in Peru up to Machu Picchu in April 2027. 

Now, fundraising for a charity can be challenging especially when you have a high target to reach, but at other times it can be liberating and allow for the possibility to check off once-in-a-lifetime activities like Fire-Walking.

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It is 29 March, 2026, and it is a grey, wet day as I leave work in Neath to head to the train station. Today, I am heading to Cardiff to check off one of my bucket list activities while raising money for a good cause, but we are not off to a good start with rail replacement buses running from Port Talbot into Cardiff.

When I finally arrive in Cardiff, I head to the castle where the Fire-Walk is taking place.

‘I’m here to take part in the Fire-Walk for Tŷ Hafan,’ I say to the staff at reception: they check my name off on their list, and I am directed around the castle to the room where our training is to take place.

It is a subterranean, vaulted ceiling, stone built room that feels appropriate to the event. With velveteen banners in red and gold hanging on the walls it is easy to picture warriors of the past drinking and challenging each other to acts of bravery. There is no fire pit in the room, it’s too small to have served as a hall, but you can visualise it as a barracks. Outside, the rain runs in rivulets down the narrow windows, a wriggling, shiny mass against the grey skies and a sense of peace settles over me. 

I’m here. 

I’m going to do this.

Slowly the room fills up and we take our seats, nearly a hundred of us, all here for a common cause, but with different motivations. Some are family and friends of people being supported by Tŷ Hafan; some are staff taking on the event to support the charity they work for, acutely aware of how important every fundraising event is; and others are like me, people taking on an event to raise money for a good cause; some people are nervous, facing their fears by taking on this challenge; some are empowered by it.

I get chatting to the lady next to me. Emily works for Tŷ Hafan. After training as a nurse, following the birth of her children, she did her internship at Tŷ Hafan and hasn’t looked back. She is nervous about the Fire-Walk, but believes in the cause. I have no doubts she will do it.

At 5pm our training starts. Steve, the trainer, is passionate and entertaining, a born motivator who alternately inspires and cajoles the group. We do trust exercises and work on the group mindset, we set ourselves ‘go’ words and motivational phrases. Over the course of an hour and a half the energy in the room shifts from anxious and nervous to pumped and confident, and then it is time.

‘Are you ready to face the Fire?’ he demands.

‘Yes!’ we chant back, a unified courageous voice.

‘Let me hear your ‘go’ word.’

We all shout out our personal word or phrase in a cacophony of determination. 

Beside me, Emily has a simple, ‘Go’ as her word. 

Behind me I can hear shouts of ‘Fuck it!’ and ‘Let’s do this!’.

Mine is, ‘Fearless’.

We rise as a single empowered entity to head back out of our mini barracks and onto the grounds before the castle. An area has been prepared for us, just inside the castle gates, the tower standing behind it as a symbol of strength.

‘Can the walkers assemble here please?’ one of the team calls out and we file inside the roped off area.

‘Let’s have a round of applause for our brave Firewalkers,’ the team member says, addressing the crowd of spectators who have gathered to watch.

For some people the applause is motivating, for others like me kind of embarrassing, but then we are taking our shoes and socks off and lining up on the muddy ground.

This is it. 

The moment we have been psyching ourselves up for.

There are two lanes, as there are so many of us, and I join the left hand lane where I am third in the queue. Opposite me, in the crowd, stands my best friend waiting to video my act of bravery. At the far end of the lane stands Steve, his arms raised in a ‘come to me’ gesture reminiscent of rugby goal posts.

And we are moving.

The first guy is already across and brushing his feet in the wet grass, the second man following him almost immediately to the surprise of the Fire-Walking team and they hold me back a moment. They want to check the lane is still good to cross and allow the two men time to clear the exit area.

‘Ready?’ the team member asks me and I start walking.

I don’t say my ‘go’ word out loud, I don’t feel the need to. When I signed up to do this event, I had already made the decision to complete it and I wasn’t going to back down now. I said I would do it and I was here, so all I needed was my cue from them that I was good to go.

Compared to the two men who had preceded me across the coals I practically sauntered across, like it was just a stroll in the wet grass, hands in my pockets, and it was over before I knew it. My feet were back on muddy ground and, following the trainer’s instructions, I scrubbed my feet in the wet grass to remove any embers that may have stuck to the undersides of my feet. I moved out of the corral and retrieved my shoes and socks. Forewarned by a colleague who had Fire-Walked before, I had bought with me wet wipes to wipe my feet down after my walk and I looked around for somewhere to do that as my friend circled around to meet me.

It was at this point that I had a pleasant surprise: a member of the Tŷ Hafan team approached me with a medal for taking part and informed me I would be emailed a certificate of completion. I had done this event for them, for the brave people supporting people living some of the toughest days any parent could ever endure, a job I wouldn’t have the strength to do, and yet here they were rewarding me for my bravery. It was humbling.

Nearby, I could see Emily in the queue for the Fire-Walk, having completed it once she had decided to go again, along with many others, and the atmosphere was electric. The crowd were inspired, the walkers buoyed by success, and the teams supporting and guiding us bursting with pride for our achievements.

Finally, I sat on the wet wall of the grounds to watch the video my friend had taken as I put my shoes and socks back on my wet feet (I remembered something to clean my feet but not dry them) and another member of the Tŷ Hafan team approached me to thank me for my bravery and ask how I had enjoyed the experience. We chatted for a while and she asked if I planned on doing any other events for the charity.

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have signed up for the Skydive at Swansea Airfield on August the 8^th.’

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If you would like to sponsor me for any of the events I have done, or that I plan to do, you can follow my JustGiving link to donate: https://www.justgiving.co/page/morag-kitson-2 

There you will also find the link to my, somewhat erratic, blog where you can read up on my experience of the events I take part in and to follow my training for the big challenge this is all working towards… hiking the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu, Peru, in April 2027.