Murdo and Jo invited me to their home, wined and dined me, then put me up for the night. Interviewing can be very enjoyable. I had been trying to off-load the job but I may change my mind. They really did live in Carnethy Avenue before Murdo joined the club, in a house with a large, attractively-organised garden. After dinner we spoke of this and that, recalling the very wet Saturday last year, collecting the Islands Peaks Race tags from the check-points. Marshalling on the Friday was ok but the weather really turned “Mull showery” when we were on the hill. The conversation gradually merged into The Interview, rather than it having a definite beginning . . . . . . . .

You joined Carnethy in 1999. What do you think of the Club?
I’m glad I joined and have come to know a lot of many very interesting people. However, Iit puzzles me that the Newsletter doesn’t have a wider authorship. You get the regular contributors – Bill, Jamie, Keith, Nick etc. – but with a membership of 200, it would be interesting to hear from a lot more. They must do things. I read the Interview with Serena and worried about what II was going to say.!

The reason I took this thing on was to introduce some members to the rest of the members. What do we get up to, what is our ethos?
There are so many of us it is only possible to know a small proportion. How many do you know? About 4050, I guess, met mostly at races, and
events like the Dinner and the Burns Supper. We met marshalling on Mull, for example.

How do you come to be in the Club?
It was Paula (Drouet) who said if you’re keen on running in the hills, you should do the Carnethy 5. So, in 1995, travelling from living at 25, Carnethy Avenue, I did the 25th Carnethy 5 Race, and have done it been involved in it every year since. Paula then sent me a Newsletter in 1999, and persuaded me to join the Club.

How do you know Paula?
We met in 1987 through the Hash, - just when after Paula was a WRENhad left the Navy., through The Hash. There was The Navy provided “expedition” funding”, from the RN and a group of us used it to do week-long Munros – week-long trips.

You said you are not a Club person, so what keeps you in it?
Well, it seems to be a sort of umbrella organisation for people with a wide range of abilities. One minute you are talking to the World Champion and the next to people who don’t even race. I’ve got the impression from Brian Robson and others that it seems to have started, in Penicuik, to cater for people who weren’t in a Club. So it’s a club for individuals, as it were, doing different things – but based around running. I feel that the content of the Newsletter reflects this,. Which is where my puzzlement about the articles in the Newsletter comes in. for instance with Margaret Forrest did writeing about her incredible fight back from cancer; and Russell Stout’s about his amazing achievement in the Marathon des Sables - he had to be persuaded to write it down, I gather, and give his talk. . Both were riveting accounts, and I admire both individuals – for what they have done, and for sharing it with the rest of us.One minute you are talking to the World Champion and the next to people who don’t even race.

Talking of incredible stories in the Newsletter, how did you come to run the West Highland Way?
I guess it kicked off initially because the Foot and Mouth (in 2001) stopped other excursions into the hills. I spoke to Jamie, Kate, Bruce Hall (not a Carnethy member), Hilary, Nigel, Brian Cunningham, - the long distance people, - for advice. It seemed feasible, at least. The longest I had ever done before was the Two Breweries (18 miles). In the race, I hit the Wall at about 40 miles, 7 hours in. It was like running out of fuel. The legs go peculiar, stiffseized up, but it isn’t quite cramp. You say to yourself ‘Just keep going for a while’. Then Aat 70 miles, there was another low same again, near King’s House. Told myself ‘I’ll make it to the next check-point’; it all came reasonably right, and I finished in 21 hours. Then I did it again in 2002, in 19 hours.

But your 100 mile attempt on the track was much less running time than the West Highland Way.
Yes, but it had much less variety or distractions. Even the same part of the foot hits the ground every step. It’s a, and in many ways was harder - being a real “getting your head headround it” problem; and the same part of the foot hits the ground surface every step, so its hard on the feet problem. In the hills you see birds, plants, weather, geology – plenty to keep the mind ticking over. Ultra events are, almost by definition, an unknown quantity for everyone; so many extraneous variables come into play over many hourseven someone like Kate. It’s was difficult to write about your my (perceived by some) failures – and on theat track event, but I’m glad that I did so – it kind of helped to exorcise the negatives, and put things into perspective., too. I did it largely because the foot and mouth stopped other excursions in the hills.

Where were you brought up?
My father was in the Army, so I went to boarding school. We moved around a lot. Aldershot, Mauritius, Edinburgh – in fact, just about a mile from here. I guess we were in Surrey for the longest period, where I spent my teenage years. I was the eldest by a long way. My brother and sister are 10 years younger than me. It was a long gap then, but it gets smaller as you get older.

What was school like?
I did okOK. I did a lot of athletics, long and high jump. I won a 440 yards in what was thought to be timed at 44 seconds – a world record – but the second person finished in 56 seconds, so they decided the stop watch on me had been stopped inadvertently, by the gap between me and the next finisher, at 56 seconds. A very short lived moment of glory! We also used to do 50 mile marches at 16 years old, which were interesting. No hill running but cross country was good. Then Cambridge to read Law. I took up rowing. and, after about three years,In my third year my style improved overnight and I got into the first College boat. We were training 27 hours in a six-day week. – very time consuming, but great experience.

And after University?
I qualified as a lawyer in Bristol, and took up work in Law. I’d was doing also done a lot of walking, - the Pennine Way, in the Rockies, New Zealand, Alaska, mountaineering and outdoors generally. Then, in 1975, I saw an advert for courses being run by John Ridgeway, who had rowed the Atlantic in 1966, at Ardmore - in Sutherland. I asked him if he needed instructors. He said to come for a trial period, and ‘we’ll talk about it’. I had a summer season there, which expanded my horizons and opportunities enormously and met Jamie Young – Brian Cunningham’s companion in Antarctica. However, I just did the one season and then went back to Law, which paid rather more! Then, in 1978, I saw another advert looking for archaeologists. I worked as an archaeologist seasonally in Arran (an important site), Campbelltown, Norway, and Holland. Thereafter I worked in the off-season at Amsterdam University, collating the summer’s excavation digsfinds.

Are you doing any running in this period?
Very little. But I did my first hill run on Arran. The Goat Fell Race was on and, in a mad fit of post-pub enthusiasm, I did the race. At Ardmore (Ridgway’s) there was a lot masses of hill running involved, and we instructors did a lot on Foinavon, Ben Stack, and Arkle and those hills – for instance, a 10 hour run to cover a two day course walk route. . Many interesting experiences.

When did you meet Jo?
I went back to Ardmore in 1979, at John Ridgeway’s invitation, to lead the land-based activities. This involved liaising with the Duchess of Westminster for access to their 100,000 acre Sutherland Estate. Jo was her personal assistant, who dealt with the outside world for the Duchess. We (Jo & I, not the Duchess!) met, and married soon afterwards.

What are you reading at the moment?
I used to read a lot but very little now. I am trying to get into The John Simpson’s “autobiography” I am trying to get into – Jo had read it and recommended it. Before that I remember thoroughly enjoying Mike Cudahy’s “Wild Trails to Far Horizons”, which Brian Cunningham recommended. My sister had been in a bookshop in Newcastle and saw it and bought it for me. I’ve read it again and again at different levels. Then Lance Armstrong “It’s Not Just the Bike”, an amazing story. Another memorable read was Ted Corbeitt’s biography, an ultra runner of the 1960’s, - doing long runs still at the top levelas a 50-year-old in his 50s.

Do you like films and theatre?
Jo and I go very occasionally, about three times a year. We liked “About Schmidt”, and “Sliding Doors” - a story of coincidences and how small changes in life lead to different routes outcomes and experiences. We went to opera last week, Turandot, and before that “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” at the theatre. Visits are a bit sporadic.

Are you a musician or a dancer?
No, not really. Occasional Ceilidhs only.

What about Munros?
After doing a hundred or so over many years, I decided to do the lot and make my last one Ben Lui, to be done on the 9th day of the 9th month of 1999. Work intervened and made it so that we started off at 7pm and got up in the dark on the 9th, just. Good job there was a huge cairn or we wouldn’t have found the summit.! I got a buzz about that, and liked the symmetry of 9/9/99. It had The final Munro had to be one I wcould see a lot later and could in years to come, and say “that was my last one”. Ben Lui was a good choice.

Do you worry about the risks of hill running?
I’ve only been involved in one rescue in the hills. One of our party had broken an ankle. So I ran out to get the rescue organised. But by the time we got back there he had been carried out by the others. I’m conscious of risk but one takes a bit more care when you are on your own. One close call was in a white-out, when someone behind me saw a line in the snow and stopped me from walking over a cornice. Rock climbing has a bigger risk factor. I did a bit of climbing from Ardmore. The most memorable was the sea stack by Sandwood Bay, near Cape Wrath – Am Buchaille. Also, while working up there, My claim to fame is that I went climbing with Chris Bonnington when he visited Ridgeway.

What do you think about development in the Highlands?
It’s not a big issue for me. For instance, Glen Sandersanda quarry is invisible from most places. I respect the need for restrictions in the shooting season to protect jobs in the Highlands.

What is your job now?
I am a freelance, working in “outplacement”, which is advising people who are made redundant on how to re-train and identify appropriate new opportunitiesapply for employment, and move into new roles.
I’ve travel travelled a lotgreat deal with the job. I spent a lot of time in County Durham, when British Coal was shutting down, ten years ago. It decimated the mining towns of Easington and Seaham and all of the Durham mining villages. The fabric of the whole society was destroyed, brutally. Then there was Aberdeen and the oil redundancies. Th I do thought it was feel it is important to have a job which allows time to enjoy itoneself, instead of working rather than being a wage slave for 6 and a half days a week. Onee joy of living in Colinton is that there are loads of runs from 2 to 20 miles; I try to take advantage of this.

Look into the future to 2013.
I’ll be 60 years old, and I hope to be carrying on running in much the same vein, - given continued good health and well-being. Keep trying to reach a bit beyond my grasp; sometimes it works, sometimes not. If you don’t try, it certainly won’t. The wish is to keep going out into the hills.

Who should be interviewed next?
Anne, andor Ian, Nimmo.? Richard Robinson Robertson?.