When Sunil Sharma and Jane Foley completed a charity trek to the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro they took along a lucky mascot for support – a Norwich City canary.

Mr Sharma and Mrs Foley both work at the Hall Road branch of Boots and were selected to take part in the gruelling event along with 28 other employees from across the country to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

The pair decided to fundraise together and have raised nearly £13,000, well above their £9,000 target, and ran a number of events to help boost their total, including quiz nights, curry sales and a golf day.

For Mr Sunil, the thought of raising money to help cancer sufferers kept him going during the trek.

He said: 'On summit night we walked from 11pm until 10am and it's so tiring both mentally and physically.

'You reach a point when you think you don't have any more to give, but thinking of the people the charity helps does give you the strength to carry on – it's always in the back of your mind.'

Reaching the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro was the culmination of nine months of hard work and rigorous training periods at the gym and around Cromer beach.

Mr Sunil said this was a major challenge in itself.

He explained: 'I'd put on a lot of weight and my two sons had both said they thought I should do something about it. When the opportunity to apply for the Kilimanjaro trek came up I applied thinking I'd never get picked. I'm 55 years old and you don't get many opportunities to do something like this.'

To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/Jane-Foley-Sunil-Sharma