Doug Scott CBE Life and Hard Times

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Category: walking news

22nd November 2011 Easingwold School, North Yorkshire UK

For me this was going to be an emotional night, meeting again the man who had originally inspired me to take to the hills!

He got me with his first words, words that where probably insignificant to most or even all of the rest of the audience, “We use to catch the Barton bus up to North Wales”. The bus in question went from Nottingham to the Butlins Holiday Camp in Pwllheli on the Lynn Peninsula but in order to get there it needed to pass through Snowdonia.

Amongst the happy campers heading for the red coated entertainers by the sea there was usually a small group of more earthy campers heading for the mountains. As the coach wound its way up the A5 through Betws-y-Coed climbing up the valley the passengers would look in ore at the breathtaking scenery in front of them as they traveled through this wilderness. More incredibly for most on board was that the bus would stop in this desolate place and people would leave the security of this vehicle for the big outdoors. You could feel the eyes staring at you as you walked away with rucksack on your back.

Anyway, less of my memories and more of Doug Scott CBE. This was a night of inspiration. His very warm friendly approach to the audience, his Nottingham twang and sense of humour was excellent and the shear extent of his climbing achievements was quite remarkable.

Doug goes through the whole of his adventure filled life so far, from dodgy ropes on the gritstone edges of Derbyshire, remote mountains of North Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet , the summit of Everest and finally the charity that he set up in Nepal to support the communities in the high mountains.

The message of the lecture for me was that if you want to step into the wilderness and seek out adventure then there should be nothing stopping you, even today.

Inspirational, take your children!

Please go to his website and find out where he is lecturing next and go along. You need to take loads of money to help support his greatest thrill, Community Action Nepal, the charity that benefits from these events.