CHARITY fundraising champion Penelope Worsley has revealed in a moving and courageous book how she has faced up to two personal tragedies in her life.

Penelope, of Heslington, York, tells candidly in the book how her husband Oliver – brother of the Duchess of Kent – is suffering from Huntington’s disease, an inherited degenerative illness which attacks the brain cells.

She also writes about the loss of her son, Richard, in a car crash, and how it inspired her to create an international charity which is helping to transform the lives of the Karen people of northwest Thailand.

She says Oliver first experienced symptoms in 1998, when he was unable to walk straight and had difficulty controlling his hands when eating.

His mother was thought to have had Huntington’s and he eventually underwent a test which proved positive. She says there was a moral obligation to inform all the family and the Duchess immediately had a test to see whether she had the illness, which proved negative, but other family members had tested positive, including their daughter Georgina.

“Huntington’s disease is a progressive, neurodegenerative, hereditary disease that affects the voluntary and involuntary muscle coordination in your body,” she writes.

“There is a mutated gene that prevents the brain from operating normally. It affects behaviour, planning, reasoning, rational thinking.” Her husband, now 83, has recently moved to a nursing home.

She says her son Richard had spent part of his gap year in 1990 installing clean water systems and teaching children with the Karen hill tribes in northern Thailand and this meant so much to him that when he returned, he asked her if she would help the people one day.

He went on to join the British Army, but was killed in a car crash in Germany in 1996 while serving with the Light Dragoons.

Penelope says she launched the Karen Hilltribes Trust, dedicated to his memory, in 2000. So far the charity has raised over £3 million and is working in around 400 villages.

• Footsteps In The Jungle, to be published next month, will be available from Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church St, Barnsley, S70 2AS at a cost of £16.99 including postage, with cheques payable to Pen & Sword Books.