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Bernie with bar owner Thomas, who named a drink after him and donated the profits from its sale to the cancer charity

"SO, have you come for a glass of Bernie?", the barman asked through a toothy grin, pointing at a wooden shelf packed with different-coloured spirit bottles.

Yes, I was definitely back in Denmark. Back in my favourite drinking den, Pepper's, and back in my favourite town, Ribe.

Still, it was the first time I'd ever been toasted in a glass of a liquid named in my honour.

The last time I rolled into Ribe, I was on my marathon two-wheeled slog around the 6,000-kilometre North Sea Cycle Route, the basis for my book, Cycling Back to Happiness.

Ribe is a small town of 8,000 people, on the Danish Jutland peninsula, less than 50 miles north of the German border.

It was a place I had fallen in love with straight away. A maze of hemmed-in, cobbled roads and fairytale half-timbered houses, Ribe could have leapt off the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen story.

I'd been invited back to Ribe by friends from my travels, Gudrun Rishede and Jens Philipsen, who run the town's immaculate green hostel.

The excuse was a book signing, but the trip ended up being about much, much more than that.

Back in the saddle - riding out with local pensioners

The main inspiration for my cycling journey was the untimely deaths of my dear mother, Marylyn and mother-in-law, Marion West. Both suffered brain tumours within 12 tragic months or each other, both still in their fifties.

I ended up doing my cycling trek to raise funds for Cancer Research UK and ended up collecting £4,000.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would inspire strangers in a foreign land to follow suit and take up the cancer cause in their own country.

I spent 48 hours with Gudrun and Jens, as I passed through their town. Yet not only did they invite me back for a book signing, they planned a whole day of events around it, with all proceeds going to Danish Cancer Research.

I was stunned and a little embarrassed when they told me - all the more so when I arrived in Ribe to find my ugly mug on posters plastered across the windows of pubs, gyms and restaurants.

I felt like Forrest Gump when he starts running across the world and random people tag along behind!

It was a very enjoyable day's festivities - all in glorious sunshine.

A 25km cycle ride, with a pack of keen pedalling pensioners preceded the book signing at a local store.

I was given a guided tour of the town before being guest of honour at a dinner where I had to stand up and give a speech.

Meeting people and hearing their stories was a humbling experience.

After the meal I was approached by an Irishman and his Danish wife. Sam worked on the North Sea oil rigs, operating off Esbjerg, and had read about me in a newspaper.

A Geordie rigmate had recently lost his wife to cancer and just it had been with like my mother, the doctors were slow to realise the truth until it was too late.

Sam bought a copy of the book for his friend, asking me to write a dedication: "I hope this helps you on your own difficult journey."

I was choked.

No sooner had Sam departed than a Danish woman confided in me. She had lost both parents at an early age and like me, she said the experience had changed her life.

She got the travel bug and, in her sixties, rode right across the USA on a Harley Davidson.

And so we came to end up at Pepper's, my favourite bar, with its ever-smiling owner, Thomas.

This drinking hole for farmers, Vikings - and on my last trip, a bunch of hard drinking Faroes fishwives - was also in on the charity act.

Thomas not only named a drink in my honour, but decided to give all profits to the cancer charity.

It was so satisfying to be involved in such an event, joining up with the Danes in such a good cause After all, it doesn't matter if it's Cancer Research UK, Denmark or Mongolia which makes the medical breakthrough. We'll all benefit.

It had been an overwhelming and emotional day and I was in a right spin - hardly helped by a few too many glasses of Bernie!

7:57pm Friday 30th May 2008

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