AN election candidate will be taking a short break from her campaign drive this weekend to take part in Britain’s biggest swimathon.

Liberal Democrat candidate for Chester, Elizabeth Jewkes, of Bedford Avenue, Whitby, Ellesmere Port, is taking the plunge as part of her work’s swimathon team, The Welshwater Lillies, who will be swimming 200 lengths – a total of 5km – to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

The charity, which helps to make a difference to the lives of thousands of terminally ill people by providing free care from Marie Curie Nurses, provided almost 1.3 million hours of nursing care across the UK to nearly 22,000 terminally ill people. All five members of the team have been training hard and expect to complete the challenge in their target time of three hours.

The team can be sponsored at www.swimathon.org and enter the team name The Welshwater Lillies.