A charity barge pull is taking place in memory of a woman who died of lung cancer.

Nurse Emma Fisher and her husband Gavin, of Thackley, Bradford, have joined eight friends to haul the barge along the canal towpath from Liverpool to Leeds in five days to raise £20,000 for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.

They set off on Monday and today Keighley Cougars team members are due to meet them at Warehouse Swing Bridge in Kildwick, to take over and pull the barge to Booth’s Swing Bridge in Riddlesden.

The event is in memory of Julie Robinson, 48, of Leeds, who defied cancer by surviving for 21 months after doctors gave her only eight weeks to live when she was diagnosed.