About the Author

George Tod

Author: George Tod

Born 17/12/1944

Early Experiences of Hill Walking

I was born in December 1944 in Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as it then was before becoming West Yorkshire. At the age of sixteen, when I started riding my first motorbike (an Ariel Red Hunter, which was six years older than me!), I took a trip to the Lake District and was immediately captivated by the splendour of the mountains and lakes. From then onwards, I went on camping holidays there with my friends whenever the opportunity arose, and we would climb a few mountains. Sometimes, when there was nobody else to go with, I would venture forth on my own for a day, or a weekend and do some walking. However, most of this earlier walking consisted of climbing to the summit of a mountain by the shortest route and then back down again, rather than taking a longer route. There was, however, always a lingering feeling that it would be so much better to be able to carry on over to the other side and beyond rather than having to turn back. This was something I only thought about, but never actually put into practice at the time. Shortly after the Pennine Way first opened, a friend of mine suggested walking it, but this never came to fruition for one reason or another. If it had done, I am not sure whether it would have been successful, as I may well have embarked on it with a heavy backpack and insufficient preparation for such a long walk.

From the time I left home to go to Liverpool University at the age of eighteen, I lived in a several different places as required by my job as a computer support engineer and later in software support. These included Stoke-on-Trent, London, Macclesfield, Alsager, three years in Darmstadt (Germany), Manchester and Kirk Smeaton in North Yorkshire, about thirty miles from where I was brought up. I was made redundant in 1996 and then spent over three years doing contract work in Solihull in the West Midlands, working away from home. When the contract work dried up at the millenium, my wife and I sold our house and ventured into the hotel business, buying Plas Elwy Hotel in St. Asaph, North Wales. Some of these places were better than others for access to the hills and mountains. However, Kirk Smeaton, where we lived for 17 years, was quite well placed for access to three National Parks: The Peak District, The North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales, which were all within about an hour's drive or so, although the area around our home was low lying and relatively flat. Our present home in North Wales is within easy reach of all the spectacular mountains of the Snowdonia National Park, whilst even closer to hand is the Clwydian Range at the northern end of Offa's Dyke Path.

When I met my wife Jean, I started to introduce her to the mountains and actually proposed to her on the top of Great Gable, which was the first and last mountain she ever climbed. By the time she reached the summit, she was totally exhausted and I am not sure whether she had full control of her senses, but she accepted and we got married three months later. It became obvious that this sort of walking was just not for her and, in any case, we soon had our elder daughter, who tended to put a damper on that sort of activity. Family holidays by the seaside then took precedence over holidays in the hills and mountains, although I did manage to get in occasional walks from time to time.

Beginning of Long Distance Walks

It was only when the family had grown up to the point where they didn't want to participate in family holidays any more, that the opportunity came for me to take up walking again. I started to do longer distance walks, mainly around the Peak District, with friends from work. At first I was totally exhausted by walks of 15 to 20 miles, and could hardly walk for the next few days, with aching muscles and blistered feet. However, it was not very long before I started to find that I could take on such walks without suffering many side effects. I started walking fairly regularly and also started to go walking alone when there were no group walks planned.

In walking around the Peak District, I was forever crossing the path of the Pennine Way and started to wonder what it would be like to walk the whole of the route. The more walking I did, the more appealing the idea of walking the Pennine Way became, although it was only something to dream about at the time. I never really thought I would get the opportunity to do it for real, nor had I any idea if I would be able to keep up the daily pace required.

At that time, I had a job with 30 days paid leave plus national holidays each year, so it was often difficult to use it all on family holidays, especially as my younger daughter had taken up horse riding and was not interested in any holiday that did not involve four legged animals. Thus, it came to be that Jean suggested that I should go on a walking holiday for a week, as she knew how much I enjoyed walking. I had started talking about the Pennine Way in the sort of tones that made her realise that I had an urge to do it. When she suggested that I should walk the Pennine Way, she didn't realise that it would take far more than a week, but when I pointed this out, it was agreed that I had enough leave to cater both for family holidays and for the walk as well. Not knowing anyone who both wanted to do the walk and could spare the time for it, I quickly decided that it would be best to go alone.

Having successfully completed the Pennine Way in 1991, a long distance walk became an annual event. I completed five of them with the Coast to Coast Walk in 1992, the Westmorland Heritage Walk in 1993, The Pennine Way in the opposite direction in 1994, and the Lakeland Round in 1995. In 1996, I was planning the Cambrian Way along the length of Wales as my sixth walk when my plans were thrown into disarray by redundancy. It then seemed more appropriate to spend my time looking for a job and trying to conserve money, than pursuing my walking plans. Having found work away from home as an I.T. contractor after 3 months of unemployment, it then placed me in a somewhat different position. Whereas when I had a permanent job I had a large amount of paid leave, now as a contractor it is a situation of 'no work - no pay', which makes the cost of a long distance walk rather more than I could justify. This situation continued for three years and only changed slightly in 1999 when I was involved in a change of shifts. This left me with a break of almost two weeks shortly after my annual holiday with Jean. I could, therefore, fit in a one-week walk of the Cleveland Way without making it too bad for her, as I could spend time at home both before and after the walk.

My fortunes took a different turn in November 1999 when my contract came to an end and nothing new came on the horizon. After some time my wife and I decided to have a complete change of direction. We sold our house and bought an hotel in North Wales. The sale of our house was to be completed in early July 2000, so it seemed an ideal opportunity to take holidays before we took over the hotel, when we would find it more difficult to get away. The pair of us went on a trip to Hungary and the Czech Republic and then it was possible for me to walk the Cambrian Way that I had planned to do four years earlier.

Initially, after taking over the hotel, I was very busy doing all the maintenance that had been neglected for the past decade so, for quite a while, I hardy had chance even to take the dog down the road, let alone take time out for longer walks. However, as I gradually managed to get on top of things, it was possible to start thinking of another long distance walk. My only problem then was, after such an exhilerating walk as the Cambrian Way, what could I do next without being disappointed. As we now live in Wales, which abounds in hills and mountains, it seemed more sensible to do another walk through Wales, but it was a question of finding a another good high-level route. I thought that I might be disappointed with The Offa's Dyke Path, as it is not primarily high-level, and I also thought that I might find the Pembrokeshire Coast Path had not enough variety of scenery.

However, the options became very limited after the outbreak of foot and mouth disease early in 2001. By midsummer, there were still many areas restricting access to walkers, so I planned on a walk in September instead of my preferred time of June or July. Even then it was far from certain whether many of the long distance walks would be open in their entirity. For this reason, I decided to walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, which had been free of any outbreaks of foot and mouth and was fully open again. All went according to plan and I found the walk enjoyable but not as much so as some of the mountain and hill walks that I have done.

Despite my reservations about Offa's Dyke Path, as I now live only a few miles from its northern part, it seemed a logical walk to do next and I completed that in 2002. By now I was running out of new walks of the type and duration that appealed to me. However, I had sometimes considered the Southern Upland Way, but been put off by the lack of accommodation in some parts. Looking into this further, showed that the accommodation was not quite as difficult as I had thought and I chose that as my walk in 2003.

By now it was becoming more and more difficult to find something new and I decided that I would revisit some of my previous walks. Although my favourites were the Pennine Way and the Cambrian Way, both of these take rather longer than two weeks, which is the time I had set aside for the walk, so I opted for the Westmorland Heritage Walk in 2004. In 2005, I had a bit more time available, so revisited the Cambrian Way, and in 2006 Wainwright's Coast to Coast, but this time from East to West.

Future Plans

Unless something new comes up, or I decide to put together a walk of my own, or I decide to do a walk in another country, I will have to revisit some of my old favourites again.

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