A SCOTS banking executive who lost his wife to a heart defect is preparing for a marathon around Mount Everest in her memory.

Dougie Paton was left devastated when wife Jane suddenly died four years ago to a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy while the couple lived in Edinburgh.

Jane, 32, had been diagnosed with the incurable condition — an enlarged heart muscle which struggles to pump blood around the body — in 2001, but her unexpected death still shocked her family.

Since her death Mr Paton, an executive director with Morgan Stanley, has been raising funds for the Cardiomyopathy Association.

And later this month the 41-year-old will embark on the gruelling Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon, which commemorates the first successful ascent of the mountain in May 1953.

The banker, who now lives in New York, will start the marathon at Everest's base camp at 17,598ft and will eventually complete his journey at the sherpa town of Namche Bazaar. The measured distance of the course is 26.2 miles over rough mountain trails. Mr Paton, who has since remarried and has an 18-month-old son Calum, said of Jane's death: "You never fully heal, you just learn to deal with it and cope." He leaves for Everest on May 29; donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/Dougie-Paton-Everest