Rochdale’s Paul Sheerin completes 1000-mile trek with a difference

Paul Sheerin at the start of his mammoth charity trek from Land’s End to John O’Groats - with nothing but the sign on his back

Paul Sheerin from Rochdale has completed a mammoth charity trek from Land’s End to John O’Groats - with nothing but the sign on his back.

On 1 June, Paul set out to walk the length of Britain with no money, food, accommodation or kit to raise money for the Kasupe charity and Sport Relief; his fate resting in the hands of the generosity of the Great British public.

Paul said: “The focus of this walk was really for Kasupe, which is a charity set up by my friend from Malawi who now lives in Knutsford, bizarrely enough!”

The Kasupe charity, based in South Manchester, aims to end poverty in Malawi through education; building much-needed schools for the underprivileged children of the area.

Paul told us: “It was a killer. We had the wettest June in history, and I certainly hadn’t prepared for that. In theory, June shouldn’t have been such a tough month to walk in, but I might have been better off doing it in December.

“Because of the weather, I found I had a lot more donated things to carry round with me. The 35lb backpack wasn’t easy.”

Paul also explained the gruelling 1000-mile trek was physically, and at times mentally, tough, saying: “My feet blistered-up badly early on in the walk. I even had to have my wounds seen to in a hospital in Glastonbury. With walking every day, though, they didn’t have time to heal.”

In extreme pain, Paul decided to take a new approach. He told us: “I was sat at a bus stop in Exeter, unable to walk anymore. I tried to get hold of a free bike every way possible - even through the police - and a local Exeter bike shop came to my rescue and donated one. Biking is the future!”

Paul was also surprised by the sheer level of generosity from the public over the course of his trek. “The help was phenomenal,” he said. “It was absolutely overwhelming how generous people were.

“As soon as people saw me walking with my sign on my back, everybody came out of the woodwork. Tesco donated lots of food and one guy even did a complete 180 in the middle of the road to stop and help out.

“My biggest worry before I set off was going hungry and managing to keep up my 5000 calories a day, but that was the least of my problems. There were some hard nights, but 90 per cent of the time I was well-fed and looked after.”

“There are some great people in this country that you don’t hear enough about. It’s that post-war mentality of everyone pulling together to help out that’s fantastic.”

The blisters and hard nights were all worth it as Paul successfully reached John O’Groats 40 days later on 11 July, having raised an amazing £3000 for Kasupe and £350 for Sport Relief.

Paul said: “This means we can send 160 children in Malawi to school for the first time in September, plus continue work on years one and two and a secondary school. We have three more units left to build.”

Paul’s experience has been so life-changing he’s documenting the journey in a book. He said “I kept a diary throughout my travels and I’m currently writing a book about it.

“A lot of books out there focus specifically on the walking aspect, but this will be a different approach. I’ve written about 19,000 words so far and it’s almost a story of people’s generosity. How it was in the 70s, the 80s yuppie years to me now; walking with a sign on my back.”

To donate or find out more about Peter’s trek, visit www.acase4.co.uk