How RAF veteran's 65-mile walk the length of the River Wharfe showed him the soul of Yorkshire

“I’d work on so many products, turn them into 3D models, send them to the factory, and then they’d come back as the fully formed article. I could work from pretty much anywhere in the world,” he says.

The couple still live in Kuala Lumpur, but they are planning to return to Britain (“it’ll definitely be Yorkshire”, says Johno, who has just turned 40) next summer. In the meantime, he has written a love poem to one part of the county, in a book called Walking the Wharfe, which is his account of a journey along the length the river.

As he goes, he describes the landscape, the people (there are many “characters” among them) and the places in fond detail; Johno travels from the mouth of the river in the south, up through Tadcaster, Wetherby, Otley and Ilkley, to Bolton Abbey, Grassington. Kettlewell – and then to tiny Yockenthwaite and to the source at Cam Fell. In all, 65 miles.

He tells of glorious countryside, sun-dappled days and torrential downpours, and discovering that so many pubs en route have either closed their doors for good, or can only open reduced hours because of staff shortages and rising energy costs.

Johno hatched his plan before the couple went on their overseas adventures. He wasn’t a stranger to oddball journeys. He and a mate from university, Paul, were known for their epic overland trip to Sydney – in a 20-year-old redundant black cab taxi. They went through 50 countries on the way, and notched up a pair of Guinness World Records.

Johno thought that his old travelling companion might give him a round of applause for the Wharfe idea. Instead, Paul put a damning post on social media, which read: “Explorer Levison Wood has already walked 4,200 miles along the length of the Nile, so John is trying to upstage him by taking a sixty-five-mile stroll along a river through the Yorkshire countryside”.

You get the sense that Johno was ever more determined to get the job done when he read his friend’s comment.

His quest was also fired by a book he discovered, by a Victorian author called Edmund Bogg. “It turns out that he’d made the same journey as the one I wanted to complete, but at the back end of the 19th century,” adds Johno.

“His book – and he wrote many others about walks in the north – was called Two Thousand Miles in Wharfedale, which, I have to say, sounded a little, well, hyperbolic.

“Looking back, what really fascinated me was wondering how much things might have changed in the years between his journey, and the one I proposed.

“The stand-out for me was the RAF base at Church Fenton, from which I’d flown so many times. When Bogg first put pen to paper, it was just fields – the pioneering Wright brothers had only made their first recorded flight before Bogg’s book was published! But it’s true, Bogg ignited my obsession.”

He recalls that his dad was always taking the family out for walks, and that later Johno got a lot of pleasure from being in the Scouts. “The outdoors, learning about nature, campfires and knives, canoeing and rock climbing – all under supervision. What was not to love?”

When he was a teenager – as so many others have done, before and since – Johno worked in a Wetherby pub. He recalls that “it was good fun, but also really hard work, and it was an eye-opener as to human nature. Most of the customers were happy, kind souls who just wanted to enjoy a few drinks. Others were miserable, and rude, and if it taught me anything, it was about human nature, and how you behave to get a little camaraderie and respect. You see things from both sides.”

It’s perhaps not surprising then that pubs pop up quite often in his book. In fact, some of the opening lines are about enjoying a pint of Atlantic Ale in the Ferry Inn, in Cawood. The walls, observes Johno, are covered with photos of the Ouse in flood.

At the end of the book, Johno wanted to have a final pint at the Buck Inn at Buckden – it didn’t happen. This was one of the places closed (at the time of writing) because of staff shortages. Johno turned away from the door, more than slightly disappointed, but found a gent “reclined on a nearby bench. He asked where the nearest bus stop might be – did the chap know where the bus went from?. The reply, delivered with a grin, went straight to the point. “Aye, I do,” he said, “because I’m the one driving it!”

Then there was the other pub that he discovered, which looked a quaint and rural oasis for a man who turned up at the front door soaking wet, bedraggled and weary. It turned out to be on of the county’s up-market eateries, featuring a menu of haute cuisine, rather than basic pub grub. “But the waiter was wonderful, and so very kind”, says Johno, “and he stuck me in front of the blazing log fire, so that I could slowly dry out, and enjoy a very good and very tasty hamburger.” There’s a pause. He adds wistfully: “Mind you, it did cost me 17 quid, so…”

His travels were a journey into the past – and the present. “There are a lot of sites of old mills and industrial properties that fell into decline and ultimately closure, and where new technologies were resisted, and devastated communities. There was resistance from the workers when newer, faster looms were brought in, for example. These days, with our own cost-of-living crisis, it’s AI – how will that affect us?”

One of his bugbears is the litter that he encountered, even in the most serene of spots. “Why on earth can’t people learn to take it home with them?” he laments.

What emerges from the pages of the book is that Johno is a man who loves to take the time to stand and stare. “I wish others would take time out from what they consider to be their busy lives and just take in the wonderful things around them. I love to share things happening around me – ‘Look at that red kite whirling around’, but yes, I’m equally happy by myself, tramping along, in my own company. That way, you can do exactly what you want, and not have to defer to the crowd. If you want to ford that stream and get your feet wet, or climb to the top of that hill, well, you can!”

He says that the best view of the journey (“just my opinion, mind!”) is at Bolton Abbey, and the Strid, “deadly, but so beautiful, the water, the woods, the light…”

It seems that Johno and Lindsay will be returning to Yorkshire next year, and putting down roots again, this time somewhere in the north Leeds area. He plans to get all the Ordnance Survey maps out, and to discover afresh all the local walks and trails.

Has he missed his trek while in Malaysia? “Oh no, not at all. I’ve been out with a lot of the local walkers many times, exploring the jungle, and then I’ve been out by myself as well. The paw prints that you see in the mud near KL are very different indeed to the ones that you see in Yorkshire. Could they be tigers?”

And the scariest moment on the Wharfe trek? “Being surrounded by a herd of more than inquisitive cows. Once you turn your back, and you hope that they maybe have lost interest, you find that there’s another behind you, and pushing your back. I was praying that a friendly farmer might turn up and rescue me. He never did!”

Malaysian tigers, white rose county cows? You takes your choice…..

Walking the Wharfe by Johno Ellison is published by Brady Guides and pricd £9.99. www.bradtguides.com