Anyone would have though a woman who finds even the thought of going up a high building enough to make her break out in a cold sweat a 70metre high cliff top would be the last place she would visit.

But Jackie Beckett, 59, of Oldbury Prior, Calne, will not just stand on the top of the cliff she will lower herself on to a 700 metre long zip wire and hurtle across a flooded valley at 40mph.

She is taking on the challenge to raise £3,000 for the charity Mission Direct which helps communities in under-developed countries after the gauntlet was thrown down by a client from the slimming group she runs.

Mrs Beckett said: “I often set my clients challenges and this time the tables were turned on me. One of my clients said to me ‘you are always setting us challenges week by week, it’s about time we set one for you’ and she booked it. So I have no choice, I have to meet this head on.”

“I will be totally petrified but I couldn’t say no. Normally I wouldn’t go anywhere near a high place. I was on holiday in Portugal recently and wanted to walk around a castle’s walls but couldn’t manage it.”

She lost three stone herself with Cambridge Weight Plan and is now a consultant for the Calne area. 

She will travel to the National Dive Centre in Chepstow on August 10 to complete the challenge.

If successful she hopes to take on a second challenge that combines her fear of flying and her fear of heights by doing a tandem parachute jump.

She said: “I have been involved with Mission Direct for a number of years and in 2009 I visited Sierra Leone with my husband Chris and spent two weeks working on a project to build a drugs rehabilitation centre. I want to go back and see how it is doing, to do more voluntary work and to give money to the charity to help other areas of its work.”

Sponsor her on her Just Giving Page here.