Four Cambridge students punted 200 miles from the Oxford Canal to the Cam and have raised £11,725 for Alzheimer's Society, more than twice their £5,000 target.
Four Cambridge students who set out to punt from Oxford to Cambridge have raised £11,725 for Alzheimer’s Society. Their target was £5,000.
The total comes from the team’s own JustGiving page, which showed £11,725.24 from 350 donations on Monday 5 October. The page also lists £2,641 in Gift Aid on top of that.
The four are students at St John’s College, Cambridge. The college named them in its announcement in June as Charlie Swinfen, Stefan Narinian, Beth Erskine and Ryan Vowles. Charlie Swinfen is president of the college’s Punt Society.
The route out of Oxford
There is no direct river between the two cities. The team’s plan, set out on the JustGiving page, took a long loop through the Midlands and the Fens instead:
- north from Oxford on the Oxford Canal, setting off on 23 September
- on to the Grand Union Canal and Northampton by day four or five
- along the River Nene to Peterborough by about day eight
- through Ely and on to the Cam, finishing at St John’s via Jesus Lock on the weekend of 3 and 4 October
St John’s put the distance at 204 miles, with 113 locks. The hardest stretch was expected to be Braunston Tunnel on the Grand Union Canal. It runs for more than a mile, is 15 feet wide and is unlit. That works out at around 19 miles of punting a day over 11 days.
The team’s blog says the Environment Agency briefed them on the River Nene before they left. They were told the Denver sluice complex near Salter’s Lode is no place to punt. The plan was to take the punt round it on a trailer if needed.
Messages left on the fundraising page in the past day congratulate the four on finishing. The team has not yet posted its own account of the arrival on the blog or the fundraising page.
Why Alzheimer’s Society
September is World Alzheimer’s Month, and the crew wrote that some of them have already been affected by dementia in their own families.
They also point to two links with their college. The forget-me-not is the emblem of Alzheimer’s Society and a long-standing college flower at St John’s. And the college’s late Master, Sir Christopher Dobson, was a leading Alzheimer’s researcher. He died in office in 2019, and the team describes the trip as being in his memory.
It has been done before
Students have made the trip by punt before. A team from St John’s punted between the two cities in 2010, in aid of Help for Heroes, according to this year’s crew. Their page says a group of Oxford students made the journey first, in 2004. This year’s team took advice from the 2010 crew while planning.
What it means for you
- You can still give. The JustGiving page is open until 23 December 2026, and the money goes to Alzheimer’s Society (registered charity 296645).
- If dementia affects your family, Alzheimer’s Society runs a support line and local services. Its details are on alzheimers.org.uk.
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