HE HAS 68 relatives in Lithuania, so the Revd Geoffrey Price tells me, and he and his wife, Hope, will visit some of them when they join a group in August for a 360-mile sponsored cycle-tour through Poland and Lithuania. The aim is to raise money to help support the seven Marie Curie nurses in the Hounslow community.

Mrs Price, 58, has been a Marie Curie nurse for 24 years, and she and her husband, who is 62, have been training for the 60-mile-a-day trip. They are already much fitter than when they started.

“Neither of us carries much weight, but my trousers are definitely getting looser,” says Mr Price, who is Vicar of St Mary’s, Bedfont, in London diocese.

It was his grandmother who, about a century ago, came from Lithuania to Scotland, where there was a Lithuanian community, and became very important in Mr Price’s young life. His mother was deaf, and communicated by lip-reading; his father was also deaf, and used sign language.

Mr Price was one of four children who all had perfect hearing, but had difficulties in communicating with their parents. Their Lithuanian grandmother was a great support to them, and Mr Price has always kept in touch with the Lithuanian part of his family.