Hartlepool fundraiser chosen to carry Queen's Baton on route to Birmingham Commonwealth Games

Phil Holbrook, 61, who has raised over £50,000 for Alice House Hospice, will be a baton bearer when the relay comes to Saltburn on Thursday, July 14.

The baton contains a personal message from the Queen and has been on an epic journey of the Commonwealth and is now heading to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games, carried by hundreds of bearers.

Phil, of the Fens, was nominated to be one of the bearers.

He said: “It’s massive when you think of the Commonwealth Games and the fact that the baton has been all over the Commonwealth before it got here.”

He will carry the baton by running the length of Saltburn pier at 8.10am on Thursday.

Phil does not know who nominated him but believes it is linked to his years of fundraising for the hospice through his running charity Team Holbrook.

He added: “I got a phone call out of the blue on Sunday to say someone had dropped out and would I like to do one of the legs?

"I’m honoured.”

Between 40 and 130 Baton bearers will carry the baton each day and the relay will reach hundreds of villages, towns and cities during its tour of the country.

The baton has visited all 72 nations and territories in a 294-day journey which started last October and which returned to England last week.