Post by Les on Sept 24, 2017 3:27:18 GMT
23/04/2015
photos.app.goo.gl/UDfiCYsfNwZsckjm2
The Kent Messenger 50 mile walk. JFK called on the youth of the World to make a difference.
Someone a while back mentioned about the annual Kent Messenger 50 Mile Walk and I have today come across my Certificate from March 26th 1966 so thought to put it up here for anyone interested. What a great event this was... starting off at Dreamland in Margate and then setting off at around 10pm after hours on rides etc and then walking all night along country roads via Canterbury, Ashford and finishing at the barracks on Sandling Road, Maidstone. Transistor radios playing Radio caroline and Luxembourg sounds of the time through the night and multitudes of chatter along the way. Soup and sustenance waiting at the control points in Canterbury and Ashford were very welcome and a long, long night of laugh’s, messing about in the hedgerows and walk, walk ,walk! I believe numbers were limited to 10,000 starters such was the popularity on the event.
I trained for weeks before walking all the lanes between Loose, East Farleigh, Teston, Yalding, Hunton etc and after, bathed my feet in Methylated Spirits in a tray on the informed advice that this would harden the soles of your feet and keep blisters at bay! It worked but not that well.
My walk took 16hrs 20mins and how elated I was with a sense of achievement at the end finishing about 2.20 in the afternoon. Sat down in the barracks for the first time for five minutes only to find I couldn’t get back up afterwards – Legs seized!!
Then on the Monday, back at Oldborough, where the head Nelson Fuller read out the names of those who succeeded in finishing along with those that made it to Canterbury or Ashford. Happy times and very proud I felt at the time and what a night to remember.
Just a few months later, we go and win the World Cup.
photos.app.goo.gl/UDfiCYsfNwZsckjm2
The Kent Messenger 50 mile walk. JFK called on the youth of the World to make a difference.
Someone a while back mentioned about the annual Kent Messenger 50 Mile Walk and I have today come across my Certificate from March 26th 1966 so thought to put it up here for anyone interested. What a great event this was... starting off at Dreamland in Margate and then setting off at around 10pm after hours on rides etc and then walking all night along country roads via Canterbury, Ashford and finishing at the barracks on Sandling Road, Maidstone. Transistor radios playing Radio caroline and Luxembourg sounds of the time through the night and multitudes of chatter along the way. Soup and sustenance waiting at the control points in Canterbury and Ashford were very welcome and a long, long night of laugh’s, messing about in the hedgerows and walk, walk ,walk! I believe numbers were limited to 10,000 starters such was the popularity on the event.
I trained for weeks before walking all the lanes between Loose, East Farleigh, Teston, Yalding, Hunton etc and after, bathed my feet in Methylated Spirits in a tray on the informed advice that this would harden the soles of your feet and keep blisters at bay! It worked but not that well.
My walk took 16hrs 20mins and how elated I was with a sense of achievement at the end finishing about 2.20 in the afternoon. Sat down in the barracks for the first time for five minutes only to find I couldn’t get back up afterwards – Legs seized!!
Then on the Monday, back at Oldborough, where the head Nelson Fuller read out the names of those who succeeded in finishing along with those that made it to Canterbury or Ashford. Happy times and very proud I felt at the time and what a night to remember.
Just a few months later, we go and win the World Cup.