A MARATHON solo walk originally devised by writer and illustrator Alfred Wainwright is to be re-created to mark the 80th anniversary of its first completion.

The Kendal guide book author took on the 210-mile trek from Settle to Hadrian's Wall and back over 11 days from September 25 to October 5 1938.

It is believed that during the walk he sent back postcards on which were probably his first landscape sketches.

The following year he wrote a narrative description of the walk, showed it to some colleagues and put the manuscript away in a drawer where it remained untouched for nearly 48 years.

After its publication a modern re-creation of his walk using footpaths close to his route and others, mainly the Pennine Way, was planned, a guide book published and now the whole 247 mile long route is waymarked and shown on Ordnance Survey maps.

An extract from the foreword to the narrative, written in 1939, entitled ‘A Pennine Journey – The Story of a Long Walk in 1938’ read: "In September 1938, events were moving to a crisis. Fear and apprehension prevailed throughout the country.

"War seemed imminent . . . . . . The talk was of air raid shelters, fire drill, civil defence . . . . . But I was fortunate in having a fortnight’s holiday due, and I fled the familiar scene.

"I walked alone from Settle in Ribblesdale to the Roman Wall along the eastern flank of the Pennines, returning down the west side. In the solitude of the wild Pennine hills, I found peace.”

Next year the Pennine Journey Supporters Club are to repeat a charity marathon event dubbed ‘PJ-in-a-Day’ that was organised in 2013 to mark the 75th anniversary.

It is being organised to help a wide range of charities, organisations and clubs to raise much-needed funds. Organisers say it will help to make the route more widely known amongst the walking fraternity and create future economic benefit to businesses and the communities along the route.

PJ-in-a-Day charity marathon chairman David Pitt said: "I have been fortunate to have lived 200 yards from the route of Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk for the past 25 years and seen the increased benefit to Shap that has resulted from it being a staging post on that route."

Alfred Wainwright travelled north from Settle through the countryside traversed by the rivers Wharfe, Ure and Swale, over the bleak moorland country around Tan Hill before encountering the valleys of the rivers Tees, Wear and Tyne. Just beyond Hexham he reached Hadrian’s Wall which he followed west and then headed south crossing the Pennines from the high moorland town of Alston, passing through Appleby and Ingleton before returning to the start of his ‘journey’ at Settle.

His book divides the walk into 18 daily stages of varying length and offers a choice of possibilities. It can be undertaken as one continuous walk, split at Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall or into two stages of roughly 120 miles. It can also be divided into three stages - eastern, northern and western - of around 80 miles.

For further details visit: http://www.penninejourney.org.uk/bits/pj-in-a-day-2018.html