A couple from Aldershot raised £638 for a national heart charity on a sponsored walk across London. 

Sarah and Les Drawbridge, or Amberley range, joined other walkers on the eight-kilometre (five-mile) event, crossing eight of London's most famous bridges in aid of Surrey-based charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY). 

They chose to support CRY because they lost their son, Adam, in November last year to an undiagnosed cardiac illness, when he was just 23. 

Sarah said: "He had just graduated and started working.  He had his dream job, he'd bought a flat and he was happy." 

One day, however, dam's employers at the Computer Sciences Corporation telephoned Sarah and Les when he did not come into the Wellesley Road office in Aldershot. 

"It was very out of character for him," said Sarah. 

"He was never ill, and if he was going to be late he always let then know.  We had keys to his flat so went round to make sure everything was OK. 

"that's when we found him. 

"We don't know what he died from.  He was well, he was fit, he was never ill. 

"Sometimes I think our only consolation is that he didn't die on the street, that it wasn't strangers who found him." 

Sarah, 50, who is a teaching assistant at Talavera School in Aldershot, decided funeral donations should be given to CRY. 

The charity provides services including counselling and support for bereaved families, and is working towards a national screening programme to detect heart problems in young people. 

Sarah and Les, 53, an environmental health officer, support CRT's campaign for under-35s to be checked automatically for heart abnormalities. 

She said: "In an ideal world all young people would be screened. 

"There was nothing we could have done for Adam except give him a cardiac check-up. 

"And there was no reason to do that, because he had no symptoms. 

"If Adam had been automatically screened, it is possible the problem would have been detected and he's still be here." 

Sarah's son James, a 21-year-old trainee manager at Tesco in Aldershot, has been screened on the NHS because of his brother's death.  However, the NHS only funds screening if there has been a sudden death in the family. 

Sarah said on Sunday she was struck by the significance of a logo on a T-shirt a fellow walker was wearing. 

"It had a picture of this boy on it, with a caption reading, 'My brother died so I could live,' she said. 

The man had been fitted with this device that steadies his heartbeat and will prevent sudden death from cardiac arrest. 

"He only had that device fitted because a scan shows a problem.  And he only had the scan because his brother died. 

"It just makes you think - why did someone have to die for him to be checked?" 

The Drawbridges feel they have been lucky with their doctor but say service is a postcode lottery, with standards varying throughout the country. 

"I cannot fault the service we've received, but unfortunately it's not the same everywhere," said Sarah.

"But that's what makes CRY so important, because they are national.  They can be a back-up to p people who don't get the tests they need on the NHS."

CRY also aims to raise awareness of Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), a spontaneous death caused by a heart condition and brought about by exercise. 

Sarah said that she had not known about SCD before Adam died, and had been stunned to learn it killed eight young people every week. 

"You hear about the gruesome deaths.  You hear about that, the knives and guns, but not about people like Adam," she added. 

"When you're grieving it's important to know that there's other people out there, otherwise I would have been wondering if we were the only ones." 

Sandhurst boys and Girls Football Club organises an annual pre-season tournament to raise money for CRY, in memory of Lewis Marsh, a former Sandhurst player, who died from SCD in 1998 aged 13. 

The club has raised £35,000 for CRY since beginning the competition. 

This year's tournament will take place at the Memorial Park in Yorktown Road on August 30 and 31. 

See www.stbgfc.co.uk for further details.