A beauty therapist will abandon her glamorous image for a day when she dons a parachute and takes to the skies for charity.

Amanda Coppock, from Belchamp St Paul near Clare, will take the plunge in aid of the British Heart Foundation – and in memory of her beloved father, David.

Mr Coppock died at the age of 63 after suffering a heart attack while he was working in a volunteer party with the River Stour Trust at Sudbury’s water meadows.

Last year, Amanda, 27, took part in the Sudbury to the Sea (S2C) canoe challenge along with her sisters Dawn Coppock and Julie Byham, and they raised £1,500 for the trust. Mr Coppock, who loved being outdoors, had gained his skipper’s licence shortly before he died and the girls used his canoe for part of the challenge.

This time however, Amanda will be flying solo as she undertakes a skydive for the Heart Foundation at Chatteris Airfield, near March, in Cambridgeshire at the end of August.

She has set herself a fundraising target of £700 and is already up to £390 on her Just Giving page.

Amanda said: “I’m doing this in memory of dad and I wanted to do it for the British Heart Foundation because dad suffered from a blood clot that was near his heart which led to him having a heart attack.

“Via Heart Foundation support, scientists in the UK are able to research these kind of things that happen suddenly and without warning.

“In the long run, that could prevent other families from having to go through what we have been through and would enable people to have their loved ones with them for longer.”

This will be the first time that Amanda has skydived, but she is “reasonably confident” that she has the necessary head for heights.

She added: “I don’t get nervous when I’m flying and I think I should be okay, although I might think differently when I’m sitting there waiting to jump out of the plane.

“One of my sisters has completed a skydive before but neither of them volunteered to take the challenge with me this time.”

The British Heart Foundation is the UK’s number one heart charity and it has revolutionised the way heart conditions are diagnosed and treated.

Donations like Amanda’s fund researchers’ work to help improve the lives of babies born with heart defects, find the genes that cause inherited heart conditions and hopefully one day find a cure for heart failure and heart disease.

Visit www.bhf.org.uk for more information about the foundation’s work. To support Amanda in her skydive, go to www.justgiving.com/Amanda-Coppock/