Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
Mike Bell. Church Warden, keen walker and drinking buddy. He died 20 years ago but left an indelible impression in my life.
We used to meet several days a week in the local pub after work to plot various walking expeditions or put the world to rights. One of these expeditions nearly killed me. Read about it here…..
We had already walked around a good bit of South Wales and Mike Wanted to walk a pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain. He was a religious man and so this was understandable I guess. I went along with it, but didn’t share the same fervour for church stuff.
To cut a long story short (which you can read in the book “Walking Towards Myself” in the link above), I found myself standing alone, finally, after his death, in the French Pyrenees. I was looking at a 500 mile trek to Santiago in his honour and memory.
He died as we were planning this crazy outing so I did it anyway. Like Martin Sheen in the film “The Way”, I did it to honour his wish to walk a pilgrimage.
A non-pilgrim walking a pilgrimage—nuts!
This guy left a big impression on my life with his love of God, beer and walking. I still don’t get the spiritual God bit, I don’t drink beer now, but enjoy a nice walk every day.
Must have influenced me in some way, I wrote a book about it—could you?