A MAN who was well-known in South Lakeland running circles during the 1970s has died while on a trekking holiday in Nepal.

Ken Robinson was walking with his wife, Sue, near Kanchenjunga - the world's third highest mountain - when he was taken ill in the second week of their holiday.

He developed what he thought was a cold but by the third week he had become feverish and was helicoptered to Kathmandu where he was admitted to a clinic. His conditioned worsened and he died of septic shock.

Mr Robinson was born on May 14 1954 at Helme Chase, Kendal, eldest son of Ruth and Mark Robinson. The family, who ran an electrical shop on Allhallows Lane, lived at Old Hutton before moving to Greenside, Kendal.

Mr Robinson attended Ghyllside Primary School, Kendal, but went to secondary school at Woodhouse Grove, Apperley Bridge, Bradford.

Afterwards he went to work for his father as a trainee electrician while studying A-levels at Lancaster.

He gained an outdoor education teacher's certificate at the University of Durham before going to work at Brontë House School, the preparatory school for Woodhouse Grove from 1978 to when he retired in 2008. He retired to southern Burgundy in France where he opened a B&B and gite and took up cycling.

During the 1970s he was a member of Kendal AC and ran with the likes of Dave Cannon, Mike Nicholson and Richard Belk.

An adventurer he climbed more than 30 mountains of 4,000 metres in the Alps including the Matterhorn and Mt Blanc and completed the Bob Graham Round in 1977.

He had also climbed the highest mountains in Switzerland (Dom), France (Mt Blanc), Italy (Gran Paradiso), Austria (Gross Glockner), Morocco (Mt Toubkal), Ethiopia Ras Dashen), Uganda (Mt Stanley), Mexico (Orizaba), Iran (Mt Damavand), Turkey (Mt Ararat)