Cultureshock

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Video transcript

Once I was a pupil at Elwick Road Secondary School in the early 1970s, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend Carlton Camp. This centre was set up to give children from the towns the experience of visiting and living in the countryside.

Each day the staff and teachers would take us up Pin Point at the top of Carlton Bank and from there we would walk miles over the moors. This was my very first taste of the moors. It was very tiring but we all enjoyed the experience, which was totally different from home. We slept in two dormitories, one for the boys and one for the girls. There was always lots of fun and games during the night but it was all innocent in those days.

We would all go into the main dining room for our meals, which varied enormously in quantity and quality.

Before leaving school I had the opportunity of participating in the Lyke Wake walk with staff and fellow pupils from my school. This took fourteen hours to complete the forty miles in 1975 and here began my love of the moors.

I now work in Mental Health Services and run a walking group for service users. I suggested to my walking group colleagues that we could do the Lyke Wake walk for my 50th birthday. After some persuasion they agreed and on the 20th June 2009 we set off at twelve midnight from Osmotherly, eventually reaching Ravenscar eighteen hours later at 6pm. We walked through darkness, rain and sunshine, suffering blisters, aches and pains but the sense of achievement was enormous. We are even contemplating doing it again.