I guess I was sixteen when I decided to walk the Pennine Way. It was 1969, and this long-distance footpath had been opened only four years beforehand. It was early days, and I felt something of a pioneer. Nowadays, I believe, most of the trail is clearly waymarked, and some is all too stone-and-concrete. In 1969, however, large sections went across virgin moorland, and it was a serious map-and-compass job.

I got into training. I would spend afternoons walking the canal path that led out of my home town, doing fifteen miles before I returned home. I was well prepared, in great shape. Unfortunately, there were two things that the preparations had omitted. First up, canal walks involve no climbing. And secondly, I hadn't figured the difference of walking with a heavy backpack.

Ninety minutes into the walk, staggering up the valley called Grindsbrook, out of Edale, the village and starting point of the Pennine Way, it hit me like a rock crashing down the valley sides around me. I was finished. The load and the climbing were too much. I sat on a large boulder to take a break. The late morning sun was beating down, and sweating was pouring profusely down my face and off my back. Two miles down, 248 to go: things weren't looking good.     

I could have given up and gone home. But I didn't. I got up off that rock, tottered under the weight of the load on my back, before starting off again. 

Taking in the wide and wild moorlands of Kinder Scout and Bleaklow, the first day of the walk was one that I was especially looking forward to. As it is, I remember nothing, as the totality of my energy was focussed on surviving. Somewhere along the line my path crossed with that of Dave and Chris. They were a couple of years older than me, but we linked up well, and struggled along together.

After two and a half days of this pained progress along the backbone of northern England, someone had a great idea: let's take a break. So we spent one and a half days lounging around, lazing outside the tents, doing nothing. Unfortunately Dave decided that he could continue no more: he had sunburn ulcers on the backs of his legs from walking in shorts with the sun always behind us, and determined that he would need to go home. I was unimpressed. If I had struggled this far, I wouldn't let this deter me from continuing. I felt sad to see him go, but there it is. Then there were two...

During this break, however, a miracle had quietly taken place. On resuming the walk, I was on great form. My body seemed attuned: the load on my back was like feathers, my legs ready for anything. I strode into Hebden Bridge for supplies with a spring in my step; I climbed up onto the moorlands like a mountain goat. Reborn.

For the next week or more I walked twenty miles daily without unduly pushing myself. The transformation was astonishing. Sometimes I walked with Chris, at other times I walked alone. There were moments of great magic. Late one evening, after a particularly fruitful day's walk, I set my tent up high on Cam Fell. It was an idyllic spot: tranquil, spacious, and it felt as if all the cares of the world had been banished. Had I known the language at the time, I might have referred to it as a mystical experience.

Several days later, once more as twilight approached, I was walking along a section of Hadrian's Wall. Up and down, up and down, the route went. Following the switchback through a landscape fully alive, oozing atmosphere and magic, once more I felt more real than real.

I now progressed swiftly despite the great weight on my back. This was during a time before lightweight tents had come onto the market, which were to make such endeavours a little easier. In addition, I had a read a bit about this wild camping business, and I managed to adopt a few very bad pieces of advice. In terms of nourishment, I was carrying tins of beans as a staple. Er, tins....? I had also read that crispbread carries more calories than ordinary bread per unit weight, so I opted for crispbread, which occupied roughly half my rucksack. It was only after the walk had ended that I reflected on how crispbread was marketed for slimmers, not for folk requiring high calorific intake every day.

Another weight on my shoulders was the cooking stove. I can't recall whether they were the norm at the time or not, but I had a little petrol stove. Petrol is liquid, and is therefore heavy. It also meant that, every few days I had to find a local friendly garage which would sell me a half pint of petrol. Not always easy....

Shortly before leaving home to embark on the Pennine Way I had packed my rucksack only to discover that, however much I punched and squeezed, there was not room for everything I wanted to take in my backpack. Something had to go. I most clearly needed the tent, the stove, the sleeping bag, the food. So I decided to dispense with the sleeping mat. An unnecessary luxury, I told myself optimistically.

It didn't take long for a basic truth to become apparent to me. A sleeping mat was not purely intended for a soft and comfy bed; it also served the purpose of insulating the trying-to-sleep you from the cold which seeped up from the ground below the fabric of the tent.

Walking days were long, as I would typically begin proceedings early: up at six, boots on by seven. This was not because of any clever strategy to maximise energy or daylight hours or anything. It was because, by four o'clock in the morning, I'd be freezing in my sleeping bag, as the cold seeped in from the Pennine ground below. The days might have often been warm and sunny, but the nights would get chilly, especially with my sometimes upland wild camping sites. An hour or two after the sun came up, it would be clear: walk or die.

I walked intermittently with Chris. Sometimes we would set off separately yet, come evening, miraculously meet up at some moorland camping spot. It was at High Force waterfall in Teesdale that Chris had to leave the walk and return home.

It was a poignant moment for me. He turned round, headed back for the road, while I continued in the direction of the hills beyond. Now I was truly walking alone.

The next section of the Way was one that I was particularly looking forward to. Beside the infant River Tees, onto the moors, past the cascade of water called Cauldron Snout, before crossing the wide and wild uplands towards the spectacular gash in the hillside on the west side of the Pennines, High Cup Nick. It didn't work out that way. Thick grey cloud hung over the landscape, and over me. It was bleak and desolate. For the first time on the walk, I felt lonely.

Spirits picked up somewhat over the succeeding two or three days. I recall the entrance to the little town of Alston after going over the Pennine's highest hill, Cross Fell. And then there was the mini evening epiphany on Hadrian's Wall.

Twenty four hours after the evening walk along the Roman ramparts I arrived in the tiny settlement of Bellingham and camped for the night. The end of the walk was in sight. Three more days - one over fairly flat countryside, then two to get across the Cheviot Hills - was all that would ne needed.

Next morning I arose as normal and put my nose out the tent and sniffed the air, vaguely anticipating the day ahead. On the Pennine Way, there are three different types of landscape. There is the wild, the beautiful the awe-inspiring; there are the great moors, relatively featureless but imparting a sense of space, with open skies and premonitions of infinity; and finally there is the mundane, the tedious, the miles that simply have to be walked because they are there.

The next stretch out of Bellingham is of the third variety. I looked out at a stretch - another stretch - of featureless uninspired and uninspiring moorland. I packed up my tent as normal and headed off. Not in the direction of the moors, but towards the village bus stop.

It was time to go home. So near yet so far. No thinking was involved, I just knew on that morning that I would - I could - walk no more.

A bus whisked me to the north-east coast, whence I hitched back down the motorways and home. I didn't bother telling family that I was on my way; you didn't do things the same way in 1969. My mother came home from work one late afternoon and nearly screamed in shock as she walked into the living room. She literally didn't recognise the deeply tanned, fitter than fit, being who was slouched across the chair by the window. I had undergone a transformation in all manner of ways. 

There were mitigating circumstances for the Great Bellingham bail-out. The weather was on the turn, and the rain had started up a little. And one of the seams in the tent was coming undone, which meant that, with any substantial rainfall, water would start seeping in. Nevertheless, if I had truly wished to continue the walk, these details would have been no deterrent. It took me a long time to own up to the reality: I was feeling lonely. All the solitude, sometime bleak solitude, of the Pennine Way, had got to me. Even me - independent, self-sufficient me - could have too much of a good thing. Or, more precisely, needed solitude to be balanced with nourishing company. 

It had been a great walk, and a terrible walk. The good outweighed the bad, by far. It remained a highlight of my teenage years. A great adventure.... 

Images: Kinder Scout, near the beginning of the walk; Pen-y-Ghent, middle section; landscape near Bellingham, the end of my road.