Author Topic: How did everyone start walking?  (Read 14755 times)

sussamb

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #15 on: 20:16:03, 04/12/11 »
Started with the School CCF, being 'dumped' on the Brecon Beacons or Peak District in my teens with 2 or 3 other teenagers and given a grid reference to reach for the night.  Could never happen nowadays, would be considered 'too risky'.  Continued when I joined the Army and stayed with me into my 60's (a week ago  ;) ).  Hope my love of walking always stays with me  O0
Where there's a will ...

Oxenhoper

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #16 on: 20:55:45, 04/12/11 »
I utterly loathed games and PE at school and I was hopeless at all of it (unlike my dad, who still held some of the school running records when I was at the same school!).  However, when I reached the sixth form there was an alternative - fell-walking - and I absolutely loved it.
 
I haven't always kept it up.  There have been periods when I've had other interests, but I've always had the boots lying around should the mood take me.  And in recent years with increasing need to exercise to keep my weight down, what better than getting out on the tops?
Oxenhoper was born in Burnley but had the sense to move somewhere nicer at the age of five days.

mike knipe

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #17 on: 21:50:59, 04/12/11 »
I hated games and PE too, specially the particularly cold shower they made you have before swimming (why...?) - I stilhave a serious aversion to cold water -  and the running past the Girls High School in shorts which were becoming increasingly transparent due to the sleeting rain, although I didn't mind the rugby so much...
I liked the moors. I swotted for m,y GCE's in a delve on the moors -  Me and my pal spent every evening on the moors smoking B&H and not doing our homework. Girlfriends were assessed by their ability to acheive the high points of Bleara Moor without whingeing or fainting or mentioning the Walker Brothers latest hit. We learned Am7 and other chords in sheltered places on the moors......
We could disappear in deep heather from the attentions of rampaging gamekeepers. We spent six weeks of the summer of 1967 living in a barn. We also had the occasional feast on the more dozy of the local grouse (grouse are generally pretty thick).
It sort of started from there.......
 
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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andyj

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #18 on: 21:53:08, 04/12/11 »
My love for walking stems from being about 8-9yrs old, and my parents getting my soster and I hooked on 'letterboxing' on dartmoor.

When I was 14, that love for the moors drove me to participate in training for the Ten Tors event for the next 5 years, and to continue to help out with training the younger kids at my old school until my early 20s.

Now I live in derby, I try to get up on The Peaks as often as I can, which is no where near as often as I'd like to...... Bit work and family commitments mean I'm only up there about once every couple of months :(

Lister87

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #19 on: 23:45:12, 04/12/11 »
I can't recall the first walk I went on, but living in Germany as a youngster I can recall walking locally in the german forests and camping in the Black Forest at a very young age, I must have been four or five at the time.


As I got older, I remember walking along local National Trust trails at around seven or eight, as well as our school very much promoting hiking, taking us on trips throughout Dorset, on day long treks with packed lunches and small walking boots. I pretty much enjoyed walking anywhere and everywhere I could, to school, to town, and as I got slightly older and into my teenage years, walking through farms, local fields and eventually in Chamonix, France.


My legs are pretty well built because of the amount of walking I did as a youngster, and held me well in long distance runs giving me good stamina. As I've said in my introduction thread, I look forward to getting back into walking properly, it was one of my favourite things to do in the years gone by, it's a shame I stopped during University.

sunnydale

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #20 on: 09:25:07, 05/12/11 »
I've always loved it, from a very young age. I prefered to be out in the woods on my own exploring rather than be indoors with my family ::)   Perhaps it started off as a form of escape, although even now that's often how I feel about it.
 
Tracey :)
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sussamb

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #21 on: 13:18:05, 05/12/11 »
Perhaps it started off as a form of escape, although even now that's often how I feel about it.
 
Tracey :)

+1  :)
Where there's a will ...

oldboldgeezer

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #22 on: 14:01:18, 05/12/11 »
With the Cub Scouts .. .. at about the same time as England last won the football world cup  :o
 
 
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happyhiker

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #23 on: 16:56:49, 05/12/11 »
My father-in-law was a keen walker and when I was "courting" his daughter back in the 1960s, he took me on a walk up Ingleborough in winter, through the snow - perhaps he was trying to put me off!. My "kit" was a plastic coat I wore for my Lambretta, some Tuff leather shoes and an assortment of jumpers. I got cold wet feet and must have sweat like the proverbial pig in the plastic coat but I loved it and have walked ever since. The Lambretta is long gone, sadly, as it would be a collector's item today. At least my kit for walking is a bit better now!

altirando

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #24 on: 17:19:57, 05/12/11 »
So Mr Knipe disappeared with his girl friends into the deep heather to escape the gamekeepers did he? Did the girls escape him?  I started as a cyclist, took a bike over Welsh and Scottish hill passes then realised it would be easier without the bike. Switched directly to climbing, most weekends in Snowdonia or the Peak, then broadened into general mountaineering. Relapsed a little into walking now.  But even as an early teenager I was reading mountaineering books such as those by Frank Smyth - probably forgotten by people today. It is interesting how hills/mountains can attract people and repel others.  Something in the genetic history? 

Catbells

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #25 on: 18:26:36, 05/12/11 »
I think mine came from an inner passion that I never knew I had from my childhood, not knowing that my mother and father took me to the Lakes as a very small child and walked the hills and countryside with us kiddie winkies in tow, of which I cannot remember. I reckon it was defininately passed to me by my parents of which I am very grateful, and although they for medical reasons cannot walk anymore there's nothing more I love than to take my laptop over to them and show them all the fantastic photo's of walks I've done, they love to see the photo's and my father said to me he wishes he could still do the walking so he would come with me, I would have loved that. :)
Catbells, a truly lovely walk

dibble

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #26 on: 18:40:13, 05/12/11 »
Don't laugh.. please...
but, when I was a little girl of 8, the teacher allowed us to choose
a topic to do all our work on.
I didn't know what to choose, but, I loved watching The Sound of Music,
so I decided to do all about the Lake District.
I never thought I would visit this place, but because of my love of the
film with the mountain scenes, I wanted to learn more about mountains.
And this was from a little girl who lived in the midlands.

When my family was coming here for a hol, I said no, I am not going to see stupid
scenery and I went to stay with my grandparents, in Skeggy.  When they came back they
were full of it and I went "Hmmmm" in my mind, and went with them the next time.
And, when I did that first visit, I sat with the window down trying to absorb it all...

My first mountain was Catbells.... I went straight up the ridge between Catbells
and Maiden Moor from near Grange, followed no path.. and on the way back, I returned
by the same way, sliding all the way down on my bottom!
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

robstubbs

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #27 on: 19:37:07, 05/12/11 »
I really can't remember - walked as a kid around our local woods and small hills and always liked being outdoors. Carried on with outdoor hobbies and pursuits and evolved into more walking when I met my wife.


Rob.


filob

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #28 on: 13:37:59, 06/12/11 »
Cub Scouts (until I got asked to leave  ??? )
Then local the youth club run by the church organised twice yearly trips to the Lakes.
That was a long time ago but returned last year.

C2C10

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Re: How did everyone start walking?
« Reply #29 on: 15:23:33, 06/12/11 »
My Mum always say's, when I was a young lad of 4 years, I would wander off for miles. One day, the Police found me 5 miles away in nearby Billingham.


But, I found my first love for walking whilst at school. The school I went to, for those kids who were a little slow in learning and that was great school to go to and the Teachers were great.


We would go to the annual Summer camp at Westgate, Weardale for a week, walking every day and have sing-songs around the camp fire down by the river. We also went to Langdon Beck Youth Hostel for a week and one time, went there in the winter, lot's of deep snow too.


I did the Lyke Wake Walk at School and have done that now 7 times in total. I did the Pennine Way whilst at School. I also learned my camping skills at school, so that was a real bonus.


But, when I left School, I got in drinking, night-clubbing, cig's and fighting, always ending up with a black eye, broken tooth and loads of horrible hang-over's, some were corkers.


That lasted for about 5 years into my early 20's. That day, me and mate went to the nearby social club and learned, that one of the lads in there, was starting up a walking club within the club. Sounds good, so with donkey jacket, Dr. Martin's boots and a work-type haversack, we set off to the North Yorkshire Moors, based on a Osmotherley circular, about 17 miles, which should been 10 miles and that was in February time in 1979. Of cause, at that, it was the only one time and never happen again, due to the reason, the leader getting slightly lost.


It was another 8 months later, that I was reading a local newspaper, that I saw a advert for the local rambling club "Stockton Rambling Club" and thought, I will give them a ring. The secretary, said, meet at Town Hall @ 10:00am and a coach will pick you up and that I did. Never looked back since then, although, I have to work on Sunday's nowadays,  I've still kept my membership paid to date, hopefully I will get out once in a while with them.


The long distance walking is something, I've always enjoyed and used to do long distance events with the Long Distance Walker's Association and did loads of 26+ miles with them.


My first long distance walk was apart from Pennine Way at school was (checking log) was Cleveland Way and the South Downs Way in August 1984, that was a great one and the weather was fab,


I've done a few more long distance walks since that one and it was another 6 years later, I picked up a book in the local book-shop called A Coast to Coast Walk by A. Wainwright, brought it and did it in 1990 and fell in love with it and hoping to do it again next year.


I also do a bit of cycling too, I enjoy that too and have a week-long cycling tour planned for next year, based on the North Pennines.

 

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