25 years ago, Paddy joined the Venture Scotland programme which changed the trajectory of his life. Years on, Paddy has reached back out to tell us about his current adventures and how Venture Scotland changed his outlook on life. Read more about Paddy’s big adventure below:
Almost 25 years ago, I got an opportunity through Venture Scotland to go outdoors and explore new places – they offered me the time, space and positive experiences required to make changes in my life.
Now, I’m able to give a family an opportunity to make memories together by fundraising for the Jordan Houston Trust. Through my training, I also wanted to raise awareness of Venture Scotland.
This month, I’m raising money for the Jordan Houston Trust by trekking and climbing in the Everest region of Nepal. Jordan passed away in 2011 at age 11 and since then a group of my friends have continued to raise money for the charity. The Jordan Houston Trust supports families whose kids are terminally ill. Whether I raise a few hundred pounds or a few thousand, I know they’ll be delighted because it will help the charity support more families! My Just Giving page has reached over £1,000 already, thanks to everyone’s kind donations.
I always knew I’d get around to doing something for The Jordan Houston Trust eventually, but it’s happening this July because my wife and daughter are going to visit her parents in Singapore, and I wanted to do something whilst they were away. Every time we’d flown to Singapore before, I’d watched lots of mountaineering videos on the plane and when I was looking at what I could do to raise a wee bit of money…I didn’t think many people would sponsor me for a short run because back when I was involved with Venture Scotland, a volunteer, Craig, got me back into running, and I have done everything from running the West Highland Way in a day to running the Marathon of Britain (160 miles!), since. So, I wanted to do something hard enough that it would be interesting, a bit different, a bit off the beaten track.
When you read this, I’ll have already set off to do the Everest 3 High Passes Trek, and then I thought, ‘I don’t want to be at Everest Base Camp, and someone asks me what I’m climbing, and I say that I’m not climbing anything’. So, I’m going to attempt to climb Island Peak (6189m), too. I’m making it a big enough challenge that it’s hopefully worthy of raising a bit of money for the Jordan Houston Trust!
The Venture Scotland programme took me out of my comfort zone around 25 years ago, it helped me to see what was possible outdoors. When I started training, I wasn’t fit and I was worried about carrying my equipment because I’d been unwell for 9 years and had really bad fatigue, I’d resigned myself to that until I got to the point last year when I was like ‘No. You need to, regardless of performance get back to training even noncompetitively.’ I needed to get some oxygen in my body, get healthier and lighter and be doing active things and going nice places… But through this challenge, I’ve progressed in my training over the last few months and I’ve got fitter than I thought I would!
I know it will be hard; I have experience of altitude of 4,000meters when climbing Mount Kinabalu, I felt breathless and I know that I can’t really train for that – so I’m aware that I could go there and they might say, ‘you’re not alright, you need to go back down’ and I’ve accepted that – I’m still going there, I’ll still see the hills and experience the surroundings. I wouldn’t see it as a complete failure if part of the trip did not go to plan. I’ll make the most of the experience at a lower altitude. So, I’m accepting of the situation as a whole, it’s about doing something positive and challenging and getting to come back to my daughter.
As my final bit of training, on the Summer Solstice, Thursday 20th of June 2024, I walked the Pentlands Skyline hike which takes in 16 peaks and around 2,000 meters of ascent. I loved the idea of doing it at night as I have done it several times recently during the day. I took Friday off work, and completed it on Thursday night in 8 hours, covering a distance of 42.2km! I wanted to do this to raise awareness of Venture Scotland because I know the positive impact the programme has had on my life. I hadn’t found a way to show that gratitude yet – I can’t be a volunteer on the programme – I don’t have the time to do that due to keeping up with my daughter’s activities, but I remembered reading about Rob’s run from the Bothy to the Office in Edinburgh to raise awareness of the work, and that left an impact on me and so I thought I might be able to do something like that…
And, if someone sees this, even if totally different things are going on for them than what was going on for me, maybe they’ll join Venture Scotland and benefit from the programme because of this.
It was great to get to tell VS about my trip and fundraising, as well as getting to see round the office and where the young people meet to plan their activities, today I could feel that Venture Scotland had retained the same genuinely positive and welcoming environment that I found when I went there a lifetime ago, although it feels like yesterday.
Thanks again, Paddy.