GORDON Ingall is too modest to be sure, but until someone says otherwise he has taken part in more K2B walks than anyone else - this year will be his 44th.

Not that his first attempt in the early 70s proved to be his finest hour.

"I got involved a long time ago - 1972," he recalls. "I'd just joined the embryonic IT department at Vickers and got recruited; I would have been about 27. I got roped in as part of the team.

"I was a keen hill walker and dismissed it as a long walk on roads. I ended up badly blistered with a pair of suede shoes on."

That chastening experience persuaded him to take a new approach to subsequent walks.

"I decided to sort it out, take it more seriously, started to run it and then to beat last year's time," said Gordon, of Merlin Drive, Dalton.

"If you want to beat your times, then your training goes up exponentially. It got to be quite hard work. I was never likely to win it though I did get into the first 10."

Now 72 and retired from Vickers, Gordon never considered himself a runner although the distance is more than a marathon and a half. He was content for his fundraising efforts to go into the K2B's general charity pot while focusing on the taking part.

"The big attraction to me is the event itself," he said. "I turn up at the start and get to finish as quickly as I can. It's a very personal thing."

Perhaps inevitably, after four decades of walking the route, a lot of years have merged together, though he recalls his best time as being around 1986, while another couple of years during the mid-80s were among the toughest.

He said: "There was one in the 80s when a big depression came in which was probably the hardest year, with strong wind and driving rain."

Gordon is philosophical about the fact that the end of his K2B walking years can't be far away.

"I've imagined retiring for the last two to three years. I've had a few injuries. I'm not sure if this will be the last year - but I said that last year too!"