THREE adventurous teenage friends are going to be embarking on a challenging hiking and biking expedition to raise money in memory of a nurse who was executed during the First World War.

Former St John’s School students and twins Aiden and RJ Horwood, 18, of Westerham Walk in Calne along with Euan Scott, 18, from Cumbria, met while studying for their A-levels at Hartpury College in Gloucester.

Between them, they want to raise £12,500 for the Cavell Nurses’ Trust, formerly known as NurseAid, which was founded in 1917 in memory of Edith Cavell to provide support to UK nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants.

Ms Cavell was serving in Belgium when the First World War broke out and cared for wounded soldiers of all nationalities but she was arrested after helping hundreds of Allied soldiers escape to Holland. She was subsequently found guilty of treason and sentenced to death on October 12, 1915.

“We have hosted events already and have managed to raise around £4,000,” Aiden said.

“Our next two challenges are to ride from Norwich, where Edith was born, to Brussels where Edith was executed. We have then set ourselves the challenge of climbing a height equivalent to Mount Everest in the Lake District in First World War uniforms from July 16-22.”

He added: “Mine and RJ’s reason for doing this is because our mum works for the NHS so we know tough it can be. Euan and I do history as well, so we are quite interested in supporting Edith Cavell. We feel our generation don’t know who she is and we think more people should know about her.”

The adventurous trio will be cycling nearly 200 miles over the course of three days starting on July 9 and their fundraiser doesn’t stop there, as they are taking part in the Cavell 100 challenge and will head to Canada from August 22-29 to climb Mount Cavell and lay commemorative wreaths at the summit.

To donate go to: justgiving.com/teams/cavellers or text CAVL50 and the amount you would like to give to 70070.