Sally-Anne sharpens skills before The Shard descent

HE has had so many ups and downs in his life, abseiling off Europe’s tallest building should be right up his street.But when Prince Andrew takes the plunge off The Shard in London he’ll have a fundraiser with £15 million worth of experience for company.

Mother-of-two Sally-Anne Hunter, who lives in Gullane, East Lothian, will take part in the challenge set up by the organisation she founded and runs – Edinburgh-based Commando Spirit.

It will be the first and only time that abseilers will get the chance to slide their way down The Shard.

The appeal involves brave fundraisers from across the UK taking on a series of daring challenges to raise money for the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund (RMCTF). Commando Spirit aims to raise £1m for the RMCTF by 2014.

Dubbed Descent of The Shard, the abseil will mark the first of three events taking place this autumn at different iconic London buildings.

Each participant, including Sally-Anne, has pledged to raise a minimum of £25,000 for the cause.

The 47-year-old said: “This will prove to be the ultimate test.

“I am honoured to be able to stand alongside our brave participants and take this challenge on myself.

“While extremely daunting, the experience will be phenomenal and the funds raised by myself and the rest of the team will truly make a difference.

“Being part of the Commando Spirit team taking on the Descent of The Shard offers the chance to raise serious sums of money for Royal Marine 
charities.”

Ahead of the descent, the fundraisers will receive Royal Marine standard training to learn expert techniques which will allow them to master the specialist equipment required for the abseil.

Sally-Anne added: “It’s not often that you get to meet and train alongside the world-famous Royal Marines, and training and abseiling together with them at The Shard will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

London’s newest skyscraper, which opened earlier this month, stands at 309 metres tall and has redefined the city’s skyline.

The Commando Spirit participants will abseil from The Shard with fundraisers from the Outward Bound Trust and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who will split the money he raises between both organisations.

In 2007, Sally-Anne became the 17th member of the Booby Birds, a charity event to raise money for breast cancer support.

The event involves 20 women skydiving from 10,000 feet, each raising £20,000 either individually or through the help of a fundraising Booby Buddy.

At the time, Sally-Anne undertook a training programme to let her fly solo in a microlight to raise her £20,000 contribution.

She couldn’t do the skydive jump then due to rheumatoid arthritis.

Profile: The Shard

The Shard is the tallest building in Europe at 309.6 metres and the 59th tallest in the world, around 2.7 times shorter than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is 828 metres high.

A fifth of the steelwork is from recycled sources. Almost all (95 per cent) of the construction materials are recycled.

Here are some other facts about The Shard:

• It has 11,000 glass panels.

• The area of the glass façade is 56,000 sq metres, which equals eight football pitches.

• There are 44 lifts, including double-decker lifts, and 306 flights of stairs.

• The total floor space is 11 hectares.