Possibly you’ve been hearing about Colin Bell, the 102-year-old former World War Two fighter pilot (he flew Mosquitos) who abseiled 280 feet down the Royal London Hospital last week. He did it for charity of course, raising money for the Royal College of Nursing, the RAF Benevolent Fund and the London Air Ambulance. Here he is walking on the roof prior to descent.
Here he is descending, in tandem.
Colin Bell is also a walker (again for charity), and in a BBC radio interview he talked, slightly vaguely, about a walk he did from Churchill College in Cambridge to the American Cemetery in Madingley Road (2.2 miles), and Downham Market where he was stationed during the war, to Bexwell Church (2 miles). I’m not sure that he walked from the American Cemetery to Downham Market, since that would be about 35 miles, and in any case, according to the Guardian ‘Precise distances were not recorded,’ and one of Colin’s helpers was reported as saying ‘when you’re 102, two miles can feel like 22.’ I don’t expect to live long enough to check the accuracy of that statement, but it sounds reasonable.
If only more walkers would wear ties.
In that radio interview Colin Bell didn’t specifically mention walking as the secret of his longevity he put it down to good genes and ‘A combination of alcohol, exercise, and the love of good women, with the odd bad one thrown in.’ I suppose the ‘exercise’ may have been walking, but given the good and bad women, other forms of exercise may have been involved.
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