When I was fifteen, I was very fit, due mainly to the fact that I had two paper rounds and I ran round them twice a day. As a result, I was picked for the school cross country team and my fitness increased exponentially. I took up walking, lead initially by an older man who befriended me at the Esperanto classes I attended. With him I walked in both the Yorkshire and the Derbyshire Dales, the Lake District and the Isle of Arran. Later I branched off on my own and I recall once, when short of money, I hitched up to the Lakes and slept rough in barns.

I was keen ! My hiking gear consisted of a pair of pimpled hob-nailed boots, an ordinary rain coat cut down by my mother so that it was hip-length, a pair of corduroy pants and an old. frameless ex-army rucksack.

I kept my fitness throughout my National Service, even though I adopted the twin vices of smoking and drinking to show that I was now a fully-fledged adult. When I became a civilian again and took up girls as well, my fitness declined (Delilah strikes again !). And throughout the early days of marriage, except for a brief period when I took up Judo to defend myself against my seven year old son, it was all downhill. The downhill became precipitous when I took up a trade union post which necessitated monthly trips to London and the imbibing of several pints as anaesthetic for both meetings and the return journey.

Suddenly I came to my senses. It was the photographs taken on my retirement party which showed my chipmunk cheeks and excessive embonpoint which made me take account of my physical state. I no longer had an uninterrupted view of my feet. I was short of breath caused by the strain of carrying eleven and a half stones on a five foot three frame. I was not so much a wreck as a beached whale.

I consulted several medical text books which diagnosed the problem as middle age, a disease for which there is no known cure but which can be held in check by a course of treatment known euphemistically as "exercise". I took up walking again! The treatment was expensive at first. Cheap and home-made walking gear is a bit passé for someone my age. but the cost of 'breathables' and a good pair of boots was well worth it. Now, aged 62, I weigh under ten stones. I can walk reasonable distances and up steep hills without getting too breathless. And I can see my feet again !

So the moral of this story is quite simple. If you can't see your feet, get out and about on them and they will soon reappear. (I can vouch for Alan’s ability to go up steep hills. Ed.)

Back to The Rossendale Rambler Contents Page

Back to The Rossendale Ramblers Home Page