Raising funds for brain disease research

A 20 year-old Douglas woman, who was recently told she suffers from Huntington's Disease, will today begin her bid to raise money to find a cure.

Ashley Duffy is aiming to walk 50 miles in a week along the Great Wall of China in April, and wants to both increase awareness about the condition and collect £5,000 for the Huntington's Disease Association.

Dressed, appropriately, in Oriental costumes, she and her friends will launch their campaign in Douglas this evening, with the first in a series of Island pub crawls.

Ashley, whose mother also has the disease, has inherited the gene which means she will develop the brain disorder when she gets older: