Video: Walking the Dales with Mike Tomlinson

I’M TRAMPING up an improbably steep hill out of Malham, my boots pounding off the path and legs burning with exertion, when Mike Tomlinson tells me to stop, and turn around.

It as if the view has been suddenly conjured up from nothing behind our backs.

The vast limestone amphitheatre of the Cove – currently home to a pair of nesting peregrine falcons – sweeps away to our left and Malham Tarn glitters in the distance.

We stand in silence, the wind lifting the sweat off our backs, looking out over the Yorkshire Dales rolling endlessly into the horizon.

“These landscapes are just incredible”, Mike says, after a while.

“You don’t realise how much height you gain walking – the harder the hill, the more I enjoy it.”

Despite my burning legs, it is hard to disagree.

We are out walking one of four routes chosen for the inaugural Jane Tomlinson’s Walk For All Yorkshire Dales Walking Festival, which will take place around Settle this summer, in the stunning countryside which Mike and his wife used to explore.

The route we have chosen is a 14-mile loop between Settle and Malham, one the pair used to walk regularly and where Jane suffered crippling chest pains in 2000 and had to be picked up at Malham and driven home – it was the first time Mike had noticed something was wrong and she was diagnosed with terminal cancer just four months later.

Mike, who was born and grew up in Settle before moving to Leeds, was inspired to come up with the idea for the festival doing the same walk soon after Jane’s death.

It is a part of the Dales that was deeply personal for both of them and he is thrilled at the prospect of thousands of people of all ages strolling through these hills in August, in memory of Jane.

“On the day of the festival, I just want people to enjoy themselves”, he said.

“The first time for most will be a challenge, but I also want it to highlight the countryside and encourage people to come and see more of the Yorkshire Dales and discover things about themselves.

“It will be different to the other fundraising events we have done, because walking is more enjoyable and more sociable.

“On a long walk, like doing this 14-mile route, you can have a really good laugh and discover things about people.

“The conversation flows a lot differently than when you are in other situations.

“It is a different type of conversation, and one I used to love having with Jane when we came up here to walk.

“Like a lot of people, we talked about practical things when we were at home.

“But when we were out together, we got more out of it.

“No matter how well you know somebody, there are still things to discover – going out walking together tends to do that.

“It is almost like the landscape and the countryside intoxicates you – it is like a natural drug.”

The Walk For All festival, which will take place on August 14 and is being backed by the Yorkshire Post as a media partner, features a 26-mile walk, a 14-mile walk, and a five-mile family-friendly route which the Tomlinsons used to do with their children.

There is also a four-and-a-half-mile route which is accessible for people in wheelchairs around Malham Tarn.

Before embarking on our walk, we meet in Settle, where three of the routes begin and end.

Mike’s parents used to own a sweet shop in the town and his description of the Settle he grew up in, is a world away from the tourist honeypot it is today.

As we walk along its narrow cobbled streets, Mike points out where builders’ yards have been replaced with picture-postcard holiday homes.

While the mills and quarries have closed and the tourist economy taken over, it is still a thriving town in its own right, and as we walk up the lung-busting Constitution Hill, the Settle-Carlisle Railway line which has helped bolster its economy since it was opened in 1876, snakes out into the distance.

“I have very fond memories of where I grew up”, said Mike.

“I was very privileged in terms of scenery, not material wealth.

“We would go out walking in the hills when we were little but I suppose I didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now – it was just here.

“I’m not the most observant person, a lot of wildlife passes me by and I haven’t got a clue what the birds are.

“For me it is about getting the exercise and the fresh air and escaping yourself a bit.”

From Settle, we walk through clumps of woodland framed by dry-stone walls and vast uninterrupted swathes of moorland before settling down for a sandwich and a suitably named pint of Wainwright’s Bitter in Malham.

The escape walking offers, Mike says, is something he needs more than ever as the pressure of running the Jane Tomlinson Appeal, which was set up by Jane to raise funds for cancer and children’s charities, and is now around the £4m mark, while being father to their three children, Steven, 13, Rebecca, 23 and Suzanne, 25, is taking its toll.

“The biggest problem for me is I don’t have anyone to talk to when I get home and offload the things in my head”, he said.

“When Jane was alive, we could talk through anything.

“There have been two or three times this year when I have thought about walking away from the appeal but I have to see it through.

“To do this, in the circumstances of Jane’s death and never being away from the images and the name of the appeal, I would defy anyone not to have moments of self-doubt.

“But there is a resolve within me to make the most of what Jane did in terms of the effort she put in.

“When you do walks like this you always remember it, you live 365 days in a year and you don’t remember a lot of them.

“That is what I want this festival to be about – creating memories that last forever.”