Return Journey E-Book

David Brown

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A middle-aged couple fantasise about walking the length of Britain upon retirement, safe enough as retirement is a quarter of a century away. Then illness strikes, early retirement, a promise to be fulfilled. Arriving battered but triumphant at journeys end, vowing "never again" at the end of their epic journey they find themselves sharing a restaurant with a group of disabled children from a care centre. The couple resolve to repeat the journey the following year raising funds for this centre, their "return journey". Sometimes sad, sometimes heart rending, a funny true life story of determination and courage.

Leseprobe

www.grosvenorhousepublishing.co.uk

1

Faltering Steps

It was probably the most improbable commitment two people had ever given to each other.

I was sitting with my wife Jo in the local pub lounge. It was Friday and I had only just returned home, tired and thirsty after a 250-mile drive. I needed a drink, and Jo joined me. A few short months earlier, I had started a new job as group finance director of a vibrant young company that was experiencing rapid growth. This company was based 250 miles away, and we were making preparations to move home with our two children, Steven and Iain, and our irascible sheep dog, Sherry.

I had found my old school atlas in one of our junk boxes in the loft – the sort of junk that every family has, it gets carted about from one house move to another, stuffed into the loft or a cupboard or anywhere, really, as long as it’s out of sight and out of mind – too valuable to throw away and too useless to serve any purpose. Flicking through the pages, I had found some straight lines drawn on it, which I had shown to Jo, explaining the origins. Jo had suggested I take the atlas to the pub so we could have a good laugh and a chat about what a fantasist I was and flick through some of the pages.

As the pints of beer flowed, so my nostalgia deepened. I explained to Jo in more detail what these lines had meant. In the early sixties, an eccentric peace campaigner and CND activist, Dr Barbara Moore, had captured the nation’s imagination with some of the feats she got up to in order to bring attention to her campaigns and causes. One of her regular ‘habits’ was to walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats, which are the two furthest points of habitation on the British mainland.

I had become particularly attracted to this novel way of seeing Britain, and for nine months, I planned my attempt to emulate the feats of Dr Moore. However, rock climbing was my first love, and two weeks before zero hour, I aborted everything in favour of accepting a place on a rock climbing team setting off to attempt the ascent of one of Europe’s last great unclimbed rock faces. This in turn was aborted when, with a week to go, one of the team members, a bright light of British mountaineering, became a dim glow by falling off a bit of Welsh rock, breaking a pelvis. With two great ambitions lying dead in the street, I then opted for a six-week rock-climbing holiday in the Lake District.

Jo thought this was hilarious. Whilst I had led a very active life in my early adult years – I had been a committed mountaineer and rock climber, and in my middle adult years, I had played football and drunk pints of beer standing up – in recent years I had somewhat gone to seed, mellowed, as I put it. The idea of this chain-smoking, wheezing, coughing, beer swilling, and chair-bound workaholic doing anything like getting off his butt and walking a thousand miles was hilarious to say the least. Jo had not reckoned with the effects of alcohol on this discussion, though.

David’s law number 56 was tripping in. This law states that maudlin nostalgia should exponentially increase in proportion to booze consumed. As the evening wore on, I droned on with ever-increasing pathos: “Always wanted to do it … my last great ambition … must do it before I’m dead … The first thing I will do when I retire,” and so I droned on. Jo was also not that resistant to alcohol. By the time the landlord had a smile on his face at his unusually large takings that evening, Jo had a tear in her eye in response to the pathetically sad being sitting opposite her. Grasping my hand with undying love and devotion, she slurred words of encouragement. “You will do it! I know you will! You never ever let anything beat you!” She carried on, the words of encouragement got stronger; the words of undying love and devotional support got bolder. Finally, the effects of David’s law number 56 hit critical mass. “When you do it, I will do it with you,” she declared.

Implausibility had just been squared. Jo hated, detested, walking. It was not that she was a couch potato, far from it – she led a very active lifestyle. It was just that when she was a child, her mum and dad loved walking; walked miles and miles and miles, and of course, they took poor, long-suffering Jo with them. Now the chain smoking, wheezing, coughing, beer-swilling, sedentary workaholic was about to be joined in a commitment to pop off for a thousand-mile stroll by someone who hated and detested the thought of recreationally walking anywhere. There was only one redeeming feature to this farce. It was not to happen until I retired, a comfortable 25 years at least into the future – plenty of time for reality and common sense to intervene before anything drastic happened.

Of course, it did not stop us planning it. I quite enjoyed this diversionary foray into fantasy-land. I bought a complete set of ordnance survey maps, pored over the tiniest detail and worked out thousands of different routes in the minutest of detail. Jo even joined in, bringing me cups of tea as I laboured away and enthusiastically pronouncing on what a superb achievement it would be for us both, assuming nothing was to intervene in the next quarter of a century or so to derail our plans.

Disaster, though, was only just around the corner. Something was going to intervene; something that would firmly put money, or feet, where our mouths had been.

About the same time as we had sat in the local pub, making great declarations of improbable commitment for a quarter of a century’s time, I started to be bothered with a pain in my left eye. At first, I thought it was due to a blocked tear duct, but fifteen gallons of eye wash later and I was beginning to doubt my self-diagnosis. As the frequency and severity of the pain increased, I realized that really, it was a sinus problem. I became a well-known customer at a popular chain store chemist. I almost became addicted to nasal sprays. I was eating tablets for sinus problems at a faster rate than they could be made. The atmosphere both at home and in the office began to resemble a tropical rainforest, as I resorted to humidifiers and inhalations.

None of these self-cures worked. The attacks of pain increased to as many as six a day. With very little warning, ten minutes at most, I would find myself on the floor, screaming in agony as the nerves behind my eye and down my face felt as though they were on fire. It was often accompanied by vertigo and muscle weakness. For anything up to two hours at a time, I was totally disabled by the most unimaginable pain penetrating every single nerve ending on one side of my face. At this point, I was leading some very delicate complex negotiations to buy out our biggest competitor, and my colleagues were becoming increasingly disturbed at the sight of me rolling on the floor at the most inconvenient moments. Somehow they felt concerned at the possibility that whenever the bank manager or a shareholder asked a question about the company’s profits or finances, the finance director might fall to the floor screaming and banging his head. A difficult interview with the company chairman resulted in him telling me in the kindest possible way that when the negotiations finished, I should get the problem sorted before the problem sorted me.

I have always been reluctant to visit doctors, but enough was enough. Two years after those first discussions with Jo in the King’s Head, I was with the consultant neurologist at my local hospital. I was invited to stay for a few days for ‘tests’. Tests meant putting my head in a huge magnet (brain scan), having my nose squashed flat against X-ray machines (sinus X-rays), having my eyes poked out (pressure tests for glaucoma), being strapped to a board and swung around in a room (inner ear tests), having bright lights shone in my eyes (test for other brain diseases), taking pills that made me sick, pills that stopped me being sick but caused constipation, pills to make me go, pills to make me come back. I was eventually discharged for long enough to be given a chance to recover my health before round two, the conclusive interview with the consultant.

‘We don’t fully understand it,’ he said. ‘Relatively benign if we get it under control,’ he said later.

I didn’t think much of that word ‘if’. ‘Pain is one of the most severe produced by the human body,’ he continued. I wasn’t going to argue with him on that one and I waited for the punch line. It was not long in coming. ‘Of course, we have no cure and these attacks of disabling severe pain may well continue for the rest of your life.’

A few days later, I was with the company chairman. In probably one of the most difficult passages of conversation for both of us, I had to tell him there was no cure, it could only get worse, and that a finance director prone to suddenly falling on the floor, banging his head on the ground, is no good to anyone. There was no other course of action left to either of us. A vibrant, developing company cannot be driven along by someone likely to be disabled with pain at any time without warning.

I went home with a heavy heart. Jo, who was helping out at the local farm, had just come in after an arduous journey home from work, a 500-yard drive. As she waited, I gave her the bad news. ‘I’ve retired due to ill health,’ I said. Our world came to an end. For the next few weeks, we were shattered. How does a workaholic come to terms with no work? How are dreams and plans, the basis of a happy partnership, restored against such a calamity? It was Jo who broke the spell. Casting her eyes over the rows of gleaming, unused Ordnance Survey maps, she said, ‘At least we can do the walk now.’

Even though we had planned a route, or to be more exact, lots of routes, there was still some extra planning to do. Our early thoughts did not include Sherry, our ten-year-old sheep dog. However, as we were starting roughly twenty years earlier than planned, she had to be part of the team. We had also originally planned to walk from one bed and breakfast establishment to another, essential items for comfortable living packed into a rucksack and a cast of thousands back home receiving parcels of dirty clothing, washing and repacking them and then dispatching them to the next pick up point. My health problems now made carrying a heavy rucksack unattractive and the thought of taking our irascible, geriatric sheep dog walkies from one dog-loving establishment to another made the whole idea impossible. The problem seemed insurmountable until Jo suggested the idea of a motor caravan. Being a self-contained home, we could not only carry all our worldly goods with us, we could also carry Sherry as well. This seemed a good idea at the time. All we needed was someone to drive it for us.

Another month went by before a further flash of inspiration hit us. The idea took the material form of a pile of wet concrete dust on our new living room carpet. It had been deposited there by an eighteen-year-old youth called Iain, our son. He was working as a labourer on a building site and liked to take his work home with him, or at least parts of it, in the form of cement dust, dirty boots and overalls with bits stuck on them, guaranteed to cause multiple injuries to any washing machine with the bad luck to be given the hopeless task of getting them clean. Iain was waiting to join the army the following June. We really wanted him to join the army immediately, but NATO was trying to give peace a chance for just a little bit longer.

‘If Iain finished work in March, we could start the walk in April and still finish in time for June,’ suggested Jo. We put the proposal to Iain, who seemed to warm to the idea of driving a large, expensive vehicle. I was also pleased, until I heard him drawing comparisons between a motor home and another large vehicle, an armoured one.

After six months of planning, we set off on 23 March with Iain acting as a support team and the three of us plus Sherry packed into our newly acquired motor caravan, which we termed our lorry. We had intended setting off on April Fool’s day, but impatience, bad weather and an unplanned-for level of unfitness persuaded us to bring our plans forward and give ourselves an extra week. Sixty days and many adventures later, we had arrived at John O’Groats with our feet a little worse for wear, the lorry a little worse for wear and Iain very much the worse for wear, having been blamed for everything, including the weather.

As we returned home, heavy-hearted at the end of a great adventure, we made an overnight stop at Aviemore. On average, there had been an incident involving the lorry every hundred miles. Now, over one hundred miles from John O’Groats and so far with a clear round, we stopped, partly to break the journey home, and partly to celebrate Iain having driven the lorry for over one hundred miles without pranging it, breaking keys or losing whole sets of keys.

That evening, sitting in a friendly pizza house in Aviemore, I could not help but notice the strange behaviour of a group of young people in the restaurant. As the evening wore on, it became obvious that they were severely physically and mentally handicapped. If our hearts were heavy before that meal, they were heavier afterwards as we came to realise what a privilege we had enjoyed. We were able to enjoy the ability to walk; to comprehend new vistas around us, to have ambition and the ability to achieve it, all the things that those young men and women would never have.

Back home, summer came and went and the possibility of a return journey depended on the lasting effects of the anti-climax we experienced in those first few moments of our arrival at John O’Groats. It takes a lot of time, a lot of planning and a lot of effort to do the walk. If you are a person who does not like walking, it also takes a lot of courage. As 1990 closed, we were no nearer to a final decision, other than agreeing if we were to do the walk, then it would be for charity.

We were introduced to the National Star Centre for Disabled Youth when we reached John O’Groats. In the 1970s, a Bristol dentist, Bob Thornton, founded a club called the ‘Jogle’ Club, (from the initials John O’Groats Land’s End). Membership is open to all who complete the journey either way, by any means, and the £5 membership fee goes as a charitable donation to the Star Centre. Bob founded the club after a series of walks took him from one end to the other, and to date, that remarkable man has raised over £100,000 for this worthy cause.

The aim of the Star Centre is to provide full-time further education for severely physically disabled young people. Based near Cheltenham, the centre offers residential places for up to 120 students at any one time. It was originally set up in the 1960s following the thalidomide tragedy, but very soon, under the guidance of the Department of Education, a wider need was realised. Students come from all over the United Kingdom to benefit from the specialist facilities at the centre, and increasingly the students attending are the most severely disabled. For those young people, the Star Centre is not just home. It is not just a college. It is a place where they can be equal amongst equals and fulfil a potential that, in normal circumstances, would never be achieved. For two people realising the privilege of walking a thousand miles, the thought of helping those who will never have the opportunity was irresistible.

We were still discussing the possibilities when in January 1991, we found ourselves at the Land’s End-John O’Groats Association annual dinner. Alcohol does not agree with the illness I was suffering from – to me, at times, one of the worst side effects – and I have to ensure that the right pills have been taken before I can drink. Consequently, my opportunities for indulging are severely limited. This day was one opportunity. We had a few drinks before dinner. Over dinner, the wine was found to be reasonable in both quality and price and a second bottle was ordered.

As the presentations started to take place, I felt mellow and warm. Then I heard our names being called. Jo and I stepped forward. A certificate was put in my hand. I mumbled something, and a microphone was put in the other hand. Jo groaned and looked skywards. The prayed-for divine intervention did not take place and I started to speak into the microphone. ‘Fantastic walk, fantastic experience,’ I started to bumble. ‘Fantastic big mouth,’ Jo thought as her eyes bored into the back of my head, trying to paralyse the speech centres. They failed. ‘Immense feeling of anti-climax.….’ I bumbled on. Jo’s eyes tried to paralyse everything. In Churchillian tones, I started to talk about the Return Journey.

Jo, in desperation, knowing what could well be coming, looked for a table knife, hammer, thermic lance … anything that would silence the yakking menace by her side. ‘Sponsored walk…National Star Centre…21 May, on the anniversary.…’ I cried, reaching a Mussolini-type climatic ending. Rapturous applause from a slumbering audience. Jo with her hands around my neck. We were committed.

From now on, things went steadily downhill. Jo’s father who was seriously ill in hospital at the time of the dinner, steadily declined in health. Jo spent more and more time in Rochdale to be with him, but sadly at the end of February, he died. In the meantime, also, my condition continued to deteriorate. I had been referred to a world-famous specialist in London, who had immediately instigated a massive increase in the dose of a wonder drug. The increased dose didn’t work – I continued to get worse.

Seeing an international reputation slipping down the pan, the world-famous specialist further increased the dose. Pills were now replacing other forms of food as my staple diet. I thought of varying it: perhaps toasted pills for breakfast, poached pills for lunch, a nice pill salad served with delicately sautéed capsules and lozenges for tea. The effects of this increased dose were devastating. I found myself unable to keep awake, nauseous, and too weak to even hold a pint glass. I was privileged to be a pall-bearer at my father-in-law’s funeral but struggled to hold the coffin. When we returned from Rochdale, I went for blood tests and was told that I had sufficient wonder drug in my blood to kill one and a half people! It was many weeks before I was fully recovered from the effects of the inadvertent overdose.

It was now March. Little planning had been done, and neither Jo nor I had any great enthusiasm. We still had our motor caravan, but as Iain was no longer available, due to work responsibilities, we had to find others to act as a backup team. However, this in itself posed more than the obvious problem of finding people. Living in the close confines of a motor caravan is one thing when it is all family. With strangers, it is entirely different. We decided right from the outset that additional accommodation would be necessary. We had been promised a caravan by a leading manufacturer, but now they decided they couldn’t let one go for so long. This news – bad news at the time – seemed rather academic, as the two friends who had agreed to act as a backup team had since decided they couldn’t spare so much time.

We plodded on, and slowly the enthusiasm returned. We were introduced to Andy, brother-in-law of a friend and an out of work chef. Andy offered to be one half of our back up team. Culinary expertise is not something Iain possesses in great measur,e and both Jo and I suffered from his attempts at home cooking. Andy’s credentials as a chef endeared him to us straight away, even if he was a vegetarian.

To find a partner for Andy, we placed an advert in a magazine for itinerant overseas travellers – people on working holidays. We had a huge response, and with a large shortlist, we arranged to meet prospective candidates somewhere in Earl’s Court, a district of London renowned for its thousands of bed-sits providing cheap accommodation for itinerant travellers – mostly an overwhelming contingent of Australasians, which perfectly matched the vast majority of those on our shortlist.

Arriving at Earl’s Court tube station shortly before the planned arrival of the first candidate, we looked for somewhere discreet to interview. Stomping from one café, pub and wine bar to another, most of them being full of stuffed koalas and life-size kangaroo replicas, we eventually settled on an upstairs table in a burger bar that was only full of life-size Australians.

Ordering a vast quantity of chips from one life-size Australian, we settled down to a day’s interviewing. Twelve hours, fourteen cups of coffee and an indescribable quantity of burgers later, we had found Zoe, a twenty-one-year-old Australian from North Queensland. Zoe’s self-proclaimed abilities to do everything from driving fifty-tonne articulated lorries to performing open heart surgery with only a bush knife and mulberry leaves was taken with a pinch of salt, but her ability to laugh, joke and take everything with a smile warmed her to us immediately. All we needed now was accommodation for the dynamic duo.

We started to hunt around for a second-hand caravan, good enough to last 2,000 miles, comfortable enough to accommodate two people and a dog for six weeks and cheap enough to be able to afford it! A startled salesman at the nearby caravan dealers offered to do a good deal in exchange for publicity and nearly died when I insisted on paying by credit card. I reasoned that if we walked quickly enough, we could get to Land’s End and back again in time to sell the caravan and pay off the credit card before interest was charged!

The previous year, we had averaged twenty-one miles a day on the days that we walked, plus taking a further ten days for lorry repairs after it had been crashed a few times, having to have keys cut after Iain went swimming and forgot about them in his pocket, foot repairs from hideous blisters that needed time to heal and “rest days”, times when my health was too bad to walk or Jo felt the need to go for a spot of retail therapy. This year, I decreed that our average target, including days off, would have to be at least twenty-one miles, which in practice meant that we had to walk twenty-five miles each day to ‘earn’ the spare time for rest days, etc. This gave us a target arrival day at Land’s End of 8 July. I also varied the route plan, in places making cosmetic improvements and in others, making radical changes. In particular the stretch from Manchester to Okehampton would be all new ground. Some bits just had to change to vary the worst bits of monotonous tedium.

We were all ready to go. The lineup: Jo and me walking, with Zoe and Andy backing up. A motor caravan (lorry) and a caravan towed by Jo’s Land Rover, Ben (Andy’s dog), Sherry (our dog), and Rocky (my son’s dog).

2

Northernmost Britain

On 21 May 1991, the anniversary of our arrival the previous year, we assembled at John O’Groats. Whilst the points Land’s End-John O’Groats are the accepted points for anyone wishing to travel the length of mainland Britain, neither is at the geographical extremity. In the north, the bleak and uninhabited headland of Dunnet Head is a few miles further north than John O’Groats, whilst to the south the southernmost point is the collection of cafés, souvenir shops and car parks known as Lizard Point. She who does not like walking had decided if we were going to be daft, we might as well throw in Dunnet Head and the Lizard, adding roughly 50 more miles and probably 50 more blisters to the route.

At Dounreay, near Dunnet Head, is the experimental fast breeder reactor. The nature of its work and the eerie appearance of its golf ball-shaped reactor buildings earn it the popular title of Doomsday. The previous day, as we stood at Dunnet Head, I thought Doomsday had already arrived. Dunnet Head might be the end of Britain, but on bad weather days like this, it can look like the end of the world. A cold wind tugged at our anoraks as I looked at the surroundings. The cold waters of the Pentland Firth surround a headland of crumbling cliffs topped by brown, bleak, waterlogged peat.

The first few miles from Dunnet Head are a study in desolation. Nothing lives on this windswept peninsula. There are no trees – just brown peat interspersed with cold-looking pools and lochs After three miles, the village of Brough is reached, and for the first time, green replaces brown as the principal colour. We also saw our first sign of life, a four-legged thing that was the most northerly horse in Britain. I groaned inwardly, knowing what would happen next. Sure enough, Jo wandered over, and after a five-minute chat, gave the most northerly horse the most northerly lunch, my apple.

Shortly after Brough, the road joins the main A836 Thurso to John O’Groats road. Leaving behind the most northerly farting horse in Britain, we now tramped along that road as it skirts the most northerly coastline in Britain. The cold and blustery weather stayed with us as we walked the remaining twelve miles to John O’Groats, the wind reaching gale force at times. As we tramped the main road, the castle of May, belonging to the late Queen Mother, drifted in and out of the mist. John O’Groats, never the most welcoming place, looked more cold and uninviting than usual. We took the dogs with us for this short walk as we had plenty of time. Rocky, barely a year old and with boundless energy, loved it. Ben enjoyed the company of the other two dogs. Sherry, the veteran of last year’s great trek, plodded along with a resigned expression.

I was glad to reach the Land Rover and leave the coast, for the weather was most uninviting and I hoped for better tomorrow. Back at the site in Wick, we had been assured by the site warden that this weather was unusual for the time of year. Looking forward to fish and chips that night, we had been disappointed when told that the boats couldn’t get out of Wick harbour because of the high winds, and there was no fish. We opted instead for a Chinese take-away and went next door. ‘Hope and sampans made it!’ commented Andy, as we waited for a 35 and 47 with three lots of 24.

Now, as we stood having our photographs taken, the wind was rattling the souvenir signpost. It was a nostalgic moment. My mind drifted back to last year, when we had stood under the same signpost. Then our thoughts were on the achievement of getting there, of ambitions realised and of great anti-climax. Now, our thoughts were on the struggle ahead – wondering whether it would all work with people that a few days ago were strangers to each other. It was also a moment not without trepidation. Would my health stand up to the stress? I was in a no-win situation. The pills I took to keep the pain away had side effects - cramp in the legs, painfully numb feet and weak muscles being the most obstructive. Take too much medication and every step would be a struggle to overcome pain and weakness. Try to do without and risk attacks of agonising pain. It was a fine balance. I had been cheered by the absence of symptoms the day before and reduced my intake of pills and potions to give my leg muscles a flying start.

At last, the photo call was over. Zoe, Andy and the three dogs set off in the Land Rover to John O’Groats village, three quarters of a mile away. For a few moments, Jo and I stood there, silent and alone with each other – alone with our thoughts, remembering the bad times and the good times last year and the complete confidence we had earned with each other. It was no reflection on our back up team, but at that moment, we both missed Iain. Then we gave each other a few words of encouragement, a hug and squeeze of a hand, and we set off.

At the top of the hill by John O’Groats village, we were met by strong gusts blowing in our faces. We marched on. The most northerly part of Britain is a flat and featureless place, composed largely of peat and heather. Few trees grow in this cold, windy climate. Whether the wind blows off the Atlantic or the North Sea, there is nothing to break it blowing from one side to the other.

The wind got stronger. We reached the highest point for miles around, the 300-foot hill called Warth Hill, and the viewpoint known as Black Loch. Black Loch was white as we passed it, the wind whipping up a fine spray. We reached the Hill of Harley, another towering giant at just over 200 feet high. A couple of hundred yards after this windy height, the road goes round a sharp right hand bend, and we found ourselves being blown sideways.

Reaching the small village of Nybster, we met Zoe in the Land Rover, armed with sandwiches and tea. Grateful for shelter from the wind, we scrambled in and ate in silence, exchanging anxious glances each time a severe gust rocked the vehicle.

Refreshed, we left the Land Rover and waving a not too cheerful farewell to Zoe, set off for the remaining ten miles to Wick. The wind got stronger. Gusts were blowing us backwards and into the road. Had it not been the 21st, and all the nostalgia associated with that date, we would have given up. As the winds continued to increase, we found ourselves having to sit down as traffic approached to avoid being blown into its path.

Two miles from Wick, my body informed me that my gamble with my health was about to backfire. The first signal was a sharp pain down the left side of my face. A few steps more and a searing pain over my left eyebrow informed me of the outbreak of World War Three in my head. A few more stumbling steps and my left eye felt as though it was on fire; pain was now engulfing my head. The shriek of the wind assumed deafening proportions as the pain rose to a crescendo. I sat down by the roadside: no good, had to keep going. I crossed to the shady side of the road. I held my hands to my ears to keep out the roar of wind and traffic. I closed my eyes to try and keep out the searing pain. I staggered a few more steps. Screams choked in my throat. A bench fortuitously came near. I sagged down onto it and held my head in agony, praying for quick relief, praying that the drug I always carried with me, that I had now breathed into my lungs via a medihaler, would soon relieve the searing agony that was engulfing my left eye and face. An hour passed – an hour that seemed like a lifetime; an hour of strength-sapping, agonising pain. Slowly, the drugs began to work and the pain receded sufficiently to allow progress to be made. Gingerly, on legs shaking with exhaustion, I walked the final miles into Wick.

Our schedule demanded twenty-one miles per day. So far, we had done seventeen. We desperately wanted to start to walk on schedule, but outside, the wind seemed to be getting even stronger. Even Rocky had lost all interest in going walkies. Two hours went by. Two hours in which the wind rocked the lorry and caravan with such ferocity that Zoe, whose tropical home suffers normally with mere cyclones, was getting concerned and frightened. Two hours whilst the last vestiges of pain disappeared from my head and strength returned to my legs. At six o’clock, Jo and I faced the inevitable. We were either going to start the walk behind schedule or get out there and walk four more miles.

We set off again into the teeth of the wind. If it had moderated slightly, no one was letting on. Struggling to put one foot in front of the other, we continued towards the village of Thrumster and its dreaded television mast. Coming the other way last year, we first caught sight of this tall obelisk from about ten miles away. Travelling over such flat terrain, it was a question of once seen, never out of view. No matter which way the road went, that dreaded mast, never seeming to get closer, was in our line of vision. It took about three hours to pass, by which time my sanity level, never particularly great, had sunk to jabbering idiot level.

Near to Thrumster, and we reached Loch Hempriggs. Hardly something of great scenic interest at the best of times, its black and forbidding appearance seemed almost evil as the wind blew a drenching spray into our faces. Struggling past the loch, we reached the dreaded mast. Not daring to look up and resume eyeball contact with that source of many nightmares, I kept my eyes firmly focused on my feet. Passing motorists must have gazed with sympathy at the shuffling, hunchbacked gnome that struggled south that day. We eventually reached Thrumster, where we were met by Andy in the Land Rover. Returning exhausted to the campsite, we popped in to see the warden and collect a weather forecast.

‘Not usually like this,’ said the campsite warden, trying desperately to keep his hut on the floor. ‘Normally get sunny weather in May,’ he grunted as his hut threatened to become airborne. That night, we listened to the weatherman talk about gusty conditions in Scotland. The following morning, we listened to the coastguard telling us that the winds averaged storm force 7, gusting to storm force 10 – 70mph straight into our faces! It was small wonder that we were so exhausted.

The following day, our route was to take us to the small village of Berriedale, twenty-three miles away. Five miles from Thrumster, and we were at a place called Bruan, on the edge of a cliff falling steeply into the wind-whipped North Sea. Desolate except for a ruined chapel, this was nearly a scene of disaster the previous year. Jo had needed to obey the call of nature, and stumbling amongst some ruins for a decent spot, she was seized with a sense of foreboding so strong she stopped in her tracks, literally, with one foot still posed in the air. Looking down to where her foot would have gone she saw a large beam of wood with rusty six-inch nails protruding, points upwards. One more step and those tetanus and other disease-ridden spikes would have easily perforated the soft soles of her training shoes and embedded themselves deep into her foot. This year, there was no call of nature – or if there was, then Jo opted not to take the call.

The wind had moderated only slightly, blowing off the land in a westerly direction. We were glad to reach Bruan for a ridge of gently elevated land broke the wind; giving us a much-needed respite. Six miles from Bruan and at the fishing village of Lybster, we again emerged into the teeth of the wind. After a few miles, we needed a rest after the exhausting struggle, so made our way to a welcoming local hostelry called the Portland Arms Hotel. With the wind to our backs, I pushed open the door just as an extra special gust blew. Coats flew off the hat stand, clouds of ash blew out of the ashtray and the barman disappeared in a snowstorm of lemon slices and stuffed olives. Having made a grand entrance, we ordered fruit juice and sandwiches while customers helped the barman clear up the wreckage.