A SOUTHAMPTON surgeon is to join a comedian in his cancer fundraising walk along Britain’s “oldest road”.

Tim Underwood will join comedian Bill Bailey tomorrow to talk about the importance of fundraising for research.

The comedian is walking The Ridgeway trail top to raise money for Stand Up to Cancer in tribute to his mum Madryn, who died of bowel cancer in 2005.

Now the professor of gastrointestinal surgery at the University of Southampton will join him in Wiltshire.

Professor Underwood said: “It won’t be my usual working day, but I’m looking forward to meeting Bill and his fellow comedians to explain a little about my research and how that helps patients.”

Professor Underwood, inset, has been awarded £1.4 million to conduct vital research into oesophageal cancers in a bid to improve the low survival rates.

He is the first surgeon to receive an Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship from Cancer Research UK and over the next five years will lead a team of doctors studying oesophageal tumours in incredible detail.

He added: “Funding for projects like mine comes from the public, via Cancer Research UK, so the fundraising they are doing, is absolutely vital.

“I’m hoping to give them a very short talk over lunch and hopefully that will reassure them that all the miles they are putting in this week, and the blisters, are worth it!”

Bill began a 100-mile cancer fundraising walk on Monday with a troupe of fellow comics, including Jo Brand, Lee Mack and Kevin Eldon.

The walkers are covering 15 miles a day, traversing the Chiltern Hills and the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. He took inspiration from the fundraising walk he organised for his 50th birthday, when he raised £12,000 for Cancer Research UK.

He said: “I immediately thought of Stand Up To Cancer because it has a really fantastic focus on the clinical trials, pushing forward the results of research and breakthroughs – getting them from the lab to patients as fast as possible.”