Stepping out – and speaking up – in the Yorkshire Dales with walking legends
ACTIVE OUTDOORS: Mike Merritt meets a 90-year-old runner who is still working and a dedicated hill bagger at the sprightly age of 86 on his travels
This year, more than any other, I’ve come to realise the talk is as at least as important as the walk.
It was really brought home to me on two recent feet-sapping forays in the Yorkshire Dales.
The vast majority of my guided group were the sprightly retired. Some may shudder at the prospect of a slow-paced trudge through the fells, but two things quickly emerged.
These were people who had looked after themselves and were fast paced up and down dale – but also these were lives lived, with so much to tell and learn.
In October I took a four-day guided trip with HF Holidays based out of Sedbergh which claims to be England’s official book town, with its plethora of bookshops.
There I met Tom Harrison, heading towards 90 and yet still working – as he has done for the last 25 years – at Cotswold Outdoors.
“I just do nine hours a week now,” said Tom modestly, “but people do call the store to know when I’m in for advice on boots and walks.”
Tom is chairman of a Reading rambling group who made up most of my fellow trekkers. He also famously – at the age of 85 – became the oldest person to finish a marathon in the UK that year, and he was forced to pretend he was younger in order to enter his local event, the Reading Half Marathon. He had to fake being born in 1940 due to restrictions on the competition’s website for the 2022 race. He is still a regular runner.
When I return to Inverness and mention the remarkable Tom to the manager of the city’s Cotswold Store, he simply says: ”He’s a legend.” And he is.
A few weeks earlier I was on another HF walk – this time in the Southern Dales, and among them was the most remarkable of Scots.
Margaret Squires is an 86-year-old hillwalker, who is inspiring others to take to the mountains having become a dedicated Munro bagger as a grandmother.
Margaret, who used to run a bookshop in St Andrews for 36 years, has completed all 282 Munros in Scotland.
Her late husband Roger, a retired university lecturer, also completed all the summits.
And having been busy looking after her family in her younger years, Margaret said she “didn’t really get going” until she became a granny in her early 50s.
As well as ticking off all the Munros, which are mountains over 3000ft, Margaret has climbed all 222 Corbetts (2500ft to 3000ft), all the Grahams (2000ft to 2500ft), all the Donalds (over 2000ft and with a prominence of 100ft) and virtually all the 1557 Marylins (hills with a prominence of 490ft) in the UK.
After spending a week walking the Dales with HF Holidays – based at the 46-room country house of Newfield Hall at Malham – Margaret set off early in her Honda car to drive back to St Andrews to incredibly and duitfully collect around 30 fish suppers for the residents of her old folks home!
“I’m the fish n chip monitor – as well as the coffee monitor – and I have to be back at 4pm,” she said.
HF Holidays, the walking co-operative set-up 112 years ago by country pastor turned social innovator Thomas Arthur Leonard, has truly cornered the market in this part of the world.
And Newfield Hall, where the superb head chef is a Scot, Paul Rhind, even has a room – number six – with a telescope to view the stunning scenery.
Leonard sought to improve the lives of the factory workers by offering them walking holidays as an alternative to the annual trend of spending a week at the seaside. Its country retreats include one in Glen Coe.
My week’s leaders then included a retired NHS restorative dental consultant – who on one of our treks incredibly met a former colleague he had not seen in ten years nearly 2000 feet up one peak – a former senior London Fire Service commander and a long-serving former police officer. We were in good hands… and feet.
Each of the two Dales’ trips had a choice of three walks each day – ranging in length from 6.5 miles to 13 miles and at different grades, so there was something to suit everyone.
Even as he approached being a nonagenarian, Tom still embraced a grade two walk!
The walks were varied with open moorland, rolling hills and long meandering river valleys.
My favourite in the Southern Dales was the 10-mile hike to the 2277 feet summit of Pen y ghent, one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks with glorious, commanding views of a countryside patch worked with some of the Dales’ 4000 miles of stone walls. A demanding scramble up the final 500 feet is worth the effort.
The circular walk also visits Hull Pot, the largest natural hole in England, measuring 300 feet long by 60 feet wide and 60 feet deep.
In the Western Dales, I loved the long whale-back hill of Aye Gill Pike, despite its boggy terrain. It has outstanding views across the Dales and on a clear day to the southern Lakes. The descent is steep and the total trek around 11.5 miles.
Boots with a good tread and appropriate clothing are a must on all the treks. Maps and apps should also be at hand, though the guide will have that sorted.
But after that, the most important accompaniment is a life that is being lived, whatever the age – we need to talk the walk a bit more and let what’s said work with the tread!
Trip details
Prices depend on season – but check for regular discounts. It includes comfortable en-suite rooms, cooked or continental breakfast every morning, three-course evening meals and a packed lunch. On the Western Dales four-night holiday I paid £685.
All transport to and from the daily walks is also provided.
HF membership starts from a one-off £100, but includes a good range of benefits. The non-member fee is £30 per person.