Introduction - Me and the hills

Before the beginning

I was born in 1957, started school in 1962 and senior school in 1968. The only relevance of these dates is that when I was growing up school sports were cricket, rugby and when it was too wet to be on the rugby pitch, cross-country running (in rugby boots).

The only sports I was remotely good at were gymnastics and swimming but despite the school having an excellent gymnasium and swimming pool I can only remember using them a handful of times, if you weren’t being miserable on the rugby field you weren’t doing sport. There were no other options, outdoor pursuits in education didn’t exist and even if I’d got the opportunity to visit an Outward Bound Centre I’d probably have hated being organised and told what to do.

Until 1974 I was profoundly ignorant of the hills, then my geography class visited North Wales for practical experience of what we’d been studying. The highlight was walking up Cader Idris, to see at first hand its geology and the signs of mountain glaciation for which it’s famous.

Interesting as the lessons were, what fired my imagination and left a monumental impression was the mountain, Cader Idris itself, I loved the rough paths, steep rocky places and the almost never ending views.

Getting up and then down was the hardest and most exhilarating thing I’d ever done and the best place I’d ever been.

The Beginning

The Following year, 1975, after our ‘A’ levels a group of us went on a walking holiday to the Lake District.

I’d never forgotten Cader Idris but it had been a one off experience; the 1975 holiday in contrast was total immersion in the hills. It was a 10 day walking tour, starting and ending in Keswick and taking in Glenridding, Patterdale, St Sunday Crag, Grasmere, Windermere, Coniston and Blacksail. We were nervous of the big mountains and kept mainly to the high passes between the peaks but nevertheless we ventured over Helvellyn and St. Sunday Crag.

Everyone said they’d enjoyed themselves but for me the holiday had been a revelation. I couldn’t believe anywhere was as beautiful as the Lake District, not only beautiful, but open, they promised adventure and freedom. I was hooked.

The Great Adventure

After the 1975 holiday I knew I’d found a sport, and a hobby that would last for years, I also knew that I knew nothing about my new passion. The Lake District trip had proved that Doc Martin boots, jeans and an ex-army bergen rucksack whose iron ‘A’ frame dug into my kidneys at every step was not the way forward. I needed information and I needed kit.

I devoured a raft of books and magazines, particularly “The Backpackers Handbook”, which not only gave told me what gear I needed, everything from boots to stoves but inspired the choice of my first adventure, the Pennine Way.

Officially opened in 1965, everyone had heard of the Pennine Way but thought anyone who tried it was mad or doomed or both; but I thought it sounded exciting, an exotic path into the unknown and if I was feeling poetic, a siren call to adventure.

Consequently, on the 14th July 1976 I set off from Edale to walk 270 miles to Kirk Yetholm along the ‘Spine of England’.

22 days and 270 miles later I finished, blistered and sunburn but inspired. Three weeks walking along the Pennine Way had given me the time and opportunity to learn so much about walking (just put one foot in front of the other) and backpacking (it’s heavy). Mountain navigation and map reading had gone from theories learnt to pass geography exams to a practical way of locating the correct path, campsite and pub.

The Next 40 Years

The Pennine Way was a kindergarten, an opportunity to learn basic skills and experience but it was only the beginning; over the next few years I walked the the Coast to Coast, Offa’s Dyke paths, began rock climbing, winter mountaineering and alpinism.

Many years after leaving school I met some friends and someone asked if I was still climbing mountains, “Yes”, I said, “and I’ve got quite good at it.”

A Long Cherished Ambition

Some time in the late 1970’s I read a book, ‘Journey Through Britain’ by John Hillaby, in it he chronicled his walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats in the mid 1960’s. Hillaby was of the opinion that he was one of the last people to walk so far, the modern age of the car and television meant that long distance walking was on the verge of extinction. How wrong he was.

Hillaby was writing not at the end of an era, but at the dawn of a new one, one where people went, in increasing numbers, walking for pleasure. Alfred Wainwright had completed the last of his seminal guides to the English Lake District in 1963, the definitive guide to the Pennine Way in 1965 and devised his ‘Coast to Coast Route’ in 1972. Contrary to Hillaby’s doom laden prediction as modern life became more comfortable, more people bought boots and rucksacks and went walking.

In 2020, I retired due to the my emploers wanting to make Covid related job savings. I suddenly found I had the time to walk the length of the country but no access to it. Consequently, for the last 18 months I’ve bided my time and made my plans.

Now, in March 2022 the plans are finished, the restrictions are lifted and I’m ready to set out.

This blog will, I hope, chronical my attempt to walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats by a rather circuitous but interesting route.