Business couple reach for new heights

Nov 3 2009 The Journal

IT is a far cry from the comforts that his hotel guests would have been used to.

But North East entrepreneur Tom Maxfield and his wife Jocelyn are to give up the luxuries of home to scale the heights of Mount Kilimanjaro on Sunday for charity.

The hotel magnate and a group of friends have taken inspiration from Newcastle-born songstress Cheryl Cole and are preparing to climb the highest freestanding mountain in the world.

And 60-year-old Tom – who turned Seaham Hall in County Durham from an old, derelict building into the area’s first five-star hotel which he has since sold to von Essen hotels – will now experience far harsher conditions.

Eight days of climbing, severe altitude sickness and temperatures that plummet to -20C are just some of the things the Maxfields can look forward to.

Among the 26 others joining them are Jarrow-born former 1500m champion Steve Cram, one-time Commonwealth 400m runner Allison Curbishley and former Olympic swimmer Karen Pickering.

The trip will be raising money for Comrades of Children Overseas (COCO) – a charity set up by Steve to educate poor children in Tanzania.

Jocelyn, 46, admitted that she and Tom are slightly daunted by the task ahead of them.

“We’re looking forward to it but also quite scared, because you don’t know what is ahead of you,” she said. “It’s like looking in to a black hole.