A West Lothian woman has climbed Ben Nevis in memory of her brother who she lost to suicide - raising money for a local mental health charity in the process.Charlene Elvin climbed the highest mountain in Scotland to raise money for Neil’s Hug’s Foundation, a West Lothian mental health charity that supported her family following the loss of her brother.Charlene lost her brother, Billy Abernathy, in 2020 and spent just over a year thinking of the best way to honour his memory.It was decided she and some family and friends would climb Ben Nevis and have a drink at the top for Billy.Eight people climbed Ben Nevis for Billy to support Neil’s Hugs Foundation including Charlene and her husband, Charlene’s sister-in-law and her fiancé, and friends of the family.It was decided they would take on the mountain as Billy had always said he could carry a keg of beer all the way up Ben Nevis and drink it at the top.Charlene said: ”Climbing Ben Nevis was always something my brother wanted to do and we all wanted to do something to remember him by and raise money for a good cause at the same time.“It took a wee while for me to figure something out, but after chatting with friends and family, we decided we would spend the weekend taking on Ben Nevis and have a drink in his memory.“He always said he could carry a keg of beer up there and drink it at the top, so we thought there would be no better way to keep his memory than climbing Ben Nevis and having a drink for him.“It took me the whole day on Saturday to climb it, around eight hours probably, and I was really struggling at times.
To be honest I probably would have quit if it wasn’t for such a great cause.”So far the efforts of Charlene, her friends and family has raised £855 for
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