VOLUNTEERS from the Lake District will travel to Olympic venues across the UK in the summer to become GamesMakers for London 2012.

Adrian Faulkner, secretary of WIndermere and Bowness Chamber of Trade said he could not wait to be involved.

Mr Faulkner, 64, of Craig Walk, will be a medical team volunteer in the Olympic Park for the Handball competition.

He said: “I applied for the opportunity back in 2010 and had an interview in Gateshead last year. I have been a voluntary lake ranger on Windermere and also a community first responder.

“The last time the Olympics came to Britain I was six weeks old and they will not be back in my lifetime. It is a great opportunity I couldn’t miss and it is a chance to give something back with the experience I have.”

A few years ago Mr Faulkner helped raise £17,500 in three months to buy a heart defibrilator for the North West Air Ambulance, which led them to rethink their protocol for water rescues.

He added: “I had applied to cover football in Manchester, Newcastle or Glasgow, but they said my services would be more suited to the water sports in Weymouth. I have instead ended up in the Olympic Village on the crowd side of the medical team.

“I am getting quite excited and it should be no different to what we experience in the Lake up here other than there probably being a potential for more incidents.”

Mr Faulkner said he will camp overnight in Walthamstow for ten nights during his volunteering in London.

* Westmorland Gazette reporter Patrick O’Kane will be a GamesMaker working for the Paralympic News Service in September. Read his latest blog on being a GamesMaker at thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/opinion