Barrhead man takes a leap of faith to skydive and raise funds for hospice

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Barrhead man has raised money for Paisley's respected Accord Hospice by jumping out of an aeroplane.Alastair Crae was one of a number of brave people from Renfrewshire and further afield who signed up this year for a tandem skydive in support of the Hawkhead charity.He did the skydive on Saturday, July 16 and has raised an incredible total of more than £2,100 so far. Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire.

Sign up to our newsletters here. Alastair, 60, is the director of Finance and Governance at Accord, said: “It was my 60th birthday, we can call it a special birthday, and I felt that, at that age, I didn’t really need any presents.“I knew Accord was organising a skydive as part of its fundraising for the year and I thought it was an ideal opportunity to put the two together and ask family and friends to donate instead of me getting presents.”Alastair is no newcomer to doing things that many would rather avoid.

He explained: "These kinds of things tend not to faze me. I enjoy a bit of a challenge.I had already done a couple of events for Accord including an abseil from the Finnieston Crane and a zip-wire across the Clyde - so this was the next step up from these events.“The whole experience of diving out of a small plane from 10,000ft in the air was great and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t thought about it before.“It was a bit unfortunate that it started to rain just as I jumped but that didn’t spoil things too much.