Meet the super-completer
71-year-old retired civil servant Steve Pattemore had his eyes opened to walking by the South West Coast Path – now working towards his fourth and fifth completion he says he never wants to walk anywhere else.
I’D ALWAYS BEEN a runner, until one day I pulled my back taking off a T-shirt – and that was that. I started walking on the coast path near where I live and realised I actually liked walking – the fact that it gave you time to enjoy everything around you, and it was actually proper exercise, especially on this coast!”
It was the start of a passion for walking that saw Steve tick off all the Wainwrights (the Lake District’s top 214 peaks) in a concerted, enraptured campaign. But it was the coast path whose call proved most insistent – and Steve embarked on his first attempt at its epic 630 miles during 2004-08.
He had what he thought the optimum logistical approach – taking a week or a fortnight at a time, and installing his tent at a campsite halfway along it. Then he’d use his car and the coast’s regular bus services to complete the planned section in a series of commutes – enjoying lightly-loaded walking by day, and (compared to a backpacker) luxury by night. “I found the walking excitingly challenging, the scenery ever-changing and quite honestly I loved the planning,” says Steve.
But a year after his first completion came a setback: cancer. “During the chemo the doctors asked me what I did and I said ‘walking’. They said good, it’s the best thing you could possibly do – keep doing that.”
Emboldened by the advice and recovered by January 2012, Steve began the trail a second time – this time in reverse. “It was great to be going the opposite way – all the views were new, and I just so looked forward to the next day and the next. By the time I got to the end I just wanted to turn around and walk straight back”. So… he did.
With sequential second and third completions each taking three years, it wasn’t until 2018 Steve had to come up with new holiday plans. And when he did, it was radical. KEEP walking the SWCP, only this time embarking on TWO completions at once, one beginning at Minehead and one at Poole – journeys he’s still in the thick of.
Isn’t it getting a bit… samey, Steve? Not a bit of it. “The sea’s always there, but the things you see – the colours, the wildlife, the terrain, the moods – they’re changing all the time. People come from all over the world to walk this coast – and I’m lucky enough to live in the same country? That’s brilliant. And ending your day’s walking by coming down into a nice little fishing village never gets tired.”
Favourite moments, he’s having them all the time. “I love the walk from Hartland Quay to Bude. It’s about 15 miles and it’s about 10 valleys to descend into and out of – a flavour of just how demanding this coast can be, and a real sense of achievement. And I’ll never forget wading the Erme estuary in south Devon at low tide – knee deep across the mouth of this valley with no buildings, no people, just the sound of birds and the sea. Utterly gorgeous. Magical. I had butterflies.”