THURSDAY was an emotional day for former paratrooper Chris Lewis.
Having spent the past 5½ years walking the coastline of the British Isles to raise money for charity, he reached the southernmost tip of St Clement, something which meant much more to him than you might have thought.
‘When I first started this walk, it was never about crossing countries or going over borders, it was always just about north, east, south and west. Every compass point has been extremely poignant – in the outer Hebrides I reached the most westerly point of the journey; Muckle Flugga in the Shetlands was the most northerly point; Lowestoft was the most easterly; and on Thursday I got to stand on the most southerly point. This is a big, big moment for me,’ he said.
It was back on 1 August 2017 that Mr Lewis set out from the Gower Peninsula near Swansea on a journey to raise money for the Armed Forces charity SSAFA, which had helped him during what he describes as ‘a bit of a wobble’.
‘I suffered from anxiety and a bit of depression which had got a grasp on me, and SSAFA gave me a lot of help when I needed it. I thought I need to make a change,’ he recalled.
Making a change is one way of describing it. Mr Lewis set off ‘with a tenner, two days of rations and the oldest, crappiest iPhone you could ever have’.
‘There was no absolutely no plan,’ he said. ‘To do something like this when you are going through winter after winter, you can’t really plan. The weather dictates how things go for you – you have to take each day one at a time.’
Working his way north, up the Welsh coastline, into England and then Scotland, before crossing the Irish Sea to tackle the coastline of Northern Ireland, Mr Lewis began a journey that will have occupied more than six years of his life by the time he returns to the Gower Peninsula this summer. Back on Scottish soil, he arrived at the Hebrides and, as he puts it nonchalantly, he ‘began to knock the islands off’.
‘One of the great things of doing something unplanned is that you just don’t know what’s round the corner the next day. We’ve spent Christmases without any money, or any food – one day in the Outer Hebrides we were walking past this house and they recognised us. They said there’s this island over there that’s uninhabited, do you want to spend Christmas there? On Christmas Day they came over in a boat with Christmas dinner and a bottle of whisky.
‘There are so many things like that. It’s a real joy to be able to say “Let’s just go for it and not worry about what could happen or how we are going to do it”. When you just have no choice, then you have to make things work. I could sit here for days telling you stories of places I’ve been and people I’ve met. They’ve all been so random – that’s what I love about the journey,’ he said.
The ‘we’ that he refers to has undergone a fundamental change of meaning during the walk. At first it simply embraced his dog, Jet, but it has become rather more inclusive since then. On Scotland’s north-east coast, just outside Wick, he was camping at the bottom of cliffs when he bumped into a fellow adventurer, Kate.
‘It was strange. Had it been a year before I don’t think I would have been ready for such a commitment. In the past I wanted to do the walking on my own because I didn’t want to have to worry about someone else, although I did have Jet with me. It was a rollercoaster. We came down the east coast and then, after about a year into walking, Kate and I knew that was it with us – that was going to be us,’ he said with a smile.
Last year, having decided the time was right to have a child, the couple allowed themselves the temporary luxury of a yurt in Dorset for the birth of their son, Magnus, now a member of the walking party, even if his presence partly accounts for more modest daily distances.
Mr Lewis remembers that Kate kept up her part in the expedition until three weeks before Magnus’s birth. Magnus was allowed the luxury of two months at home before they set out again. ‘We’re a proper walking family,’ Mr Lewis said.
Next month he will publish the first of two books chronicling the journey. Finding Hildasay – the island off Shetland where he spent the first lockdown foraging for lobster and crab, and fishing – will offer what he calls a ‘raw account’ of the journey, including descriptions of becoming hyperglycaemic through lack of food and rummaging through bins in search of sustenance.
‘I’m really nervous because there is a lot of personal stuff in there but at the same time mental-health issues are a huge thing in this day and age, at the forefront of everything, and if somebody who’s got a problem out there reads this and thinks I can get off my backside and do something, then it’s worth it,’ he said.
Jersey has been a great experience, not only because of the landmark southernmost point in the British Isles but also because of the rich variety of the coastline. When he describes it as ‘stunning, with a bit of everything’ perhaps Visit Jersey might take note. After all, few people who single out Jersey’s coastline for praise can actually compare it with every other stretch in the British Isles.
Mr Lewis expresses his thanks to Condor, who provided tickets for the Channel Island leg that will see them travel back to Guernsey to complete Sark and Alderney, the rest of the Bailiwick already being in the bag.
Having set out in 2017 with a fundraising target of £100,000, Mr Lewis has now reached £340,000. He hopes, with a big media push, to reach half a million pounds by the end.
‘We really have enjoyed Jersey. We just want to say thank-you to anyone who has donated, or stopped to talk to us, which is really nice. We’ve had a really great time and it’s a place we’ll definitely come back and see, I know that,’ he said.
