Mission accomplished: Chris Jones reflects on the best part of his epic walk

Now back at home near Woodhall Spa round-Britain walker Chris Jones has spent two years trekking almost 6,500 miles round the entire coast of Britain. He’s raised more than £75,000 for the Freemasons’ charity the MCF, whose counsellors brought him back from the edge of suicide – and now he’s looking ahead to the next stage of his project, which will be writing a book about his experiences and reflections.

Having called the walk ‘On The Edge’,  a recognition of his mental state and where the walk took him around the edge of the country, the book’s working title is Back from The Edge. In it he’ll share stories of the people he’s met and the things he’s seen, and answer the question he’s asked most often.

He said: “I’m constantly being asked to identify the best piece of coastline, or define the nicest part of the walk. They’re hard questions to answer because there are so many beautiful places on our coast. However, after much contemplation, I’ve worked it out. It’s not the endless sandy beaches of Northumberland, the wilderness of the west coast of Scotland, the beautiful sunsets from the west coast of Wales, or the dramatic clifftop walking of the Jurassic Coast of Devon and Dorset.

“The nicest part of the walk was the people I met in all those places; the people that welcomed me, looked after me, shared their food and their stories with me. So many people live with poor mental health. The best part of my walk was hearing the stories about how they were saved or how they are managing their problems with the help of others.

“Those stories, alongside the things I’ve learned that we can all do to help ourselves when our mental health stumbles, will shine through when I write the book. And if all of that helps others, then that will have been the most worthwhile and rewarding part of my walk.”

Chris returned to Lincolnshire on December 8th, where he was greeted at Long Sutton Masonic Hall, the Province’s closest centre to the Norfolk border. There he was given a hero’s welcome and a further £11,000 towards his fundraising total – £10,000 from the Province, and a further £1,000 from the Garthwaite Trust, which runs the building. Between then and the 14th he walked the last few miles to Skegness Masonic Centre, where his epic journey had begun on New Year’s Day 2023. There he was given his second hero’s welcome, and escorted home by a fleet of motorbikes ridden by members of his own Free Wheelers Lodge. He said: “I had to walk those last few miles. if I hadn’t, I would never have heard the last of it.”

There will be more to be said about Chris’s walk and fundraising – the largest amount ever raised for the MCF by one individual in a single endeavour – when the book’s published. There are also plans in the background to create a formal event in which Chris will describe his experiences. That’s very much in the formative stage just now. Watch this space for more details…

On The Edge: The walk in numbers

• 6 pairs of boots
• 4 new shirts
• 3 new hats
• 378 walking days
• 6,479 miles walked (17.4 miles a day)
• 13,324,917 steps
• 427 nights in a tent
• 61 nights in people’s homes or camping in their gardens
• 72 nights in B&Bs or Hotels
• Slept in caravans, motorhomes, a boat, a church, a Masonic hall, many graveyards, golf courses (including both of Donald Trump’s courses in Scotland), spare rooms, on sofas, on a dining room floor, on the stage of a marquee after the Milford Haven Round Table Beer Festival, and two beaches.
• 44 Provinces visited (21 in England and Wales, 23 in Scotland)
• 12 islands visited (Orkney, Skye, Mull, Aaran, Anglesey, Isles of Scilly, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Wight, Portsea Island, Hayling Island and the Isle of Man)
• 1,935 pints of beer drunk
• £75,000 raised so far (including gift aid, with more to come)

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