The Pennine Way: Veterans to walk toughest route in England in aid of the Gurkhas

Jim recently turned 65 and sett off on the charity hike along with ex-naval buddy, Stephen, 67, from Cornwall.

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Their challenge is to walk the gruelling Pennine Way raising money for the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

Jim has already circumnavigated the entirety of the English coastline and wrote a book, which encapsulates his experience during his trek and has sold 1,000 copies, called ‘I may be gone a while.’

He has also walked all four beaches of the Normandy landings that happened during the second world war, and in the process has raised around £51,000 for the Gurkhas which has been used to build earthquake proof housing in Nepal, with one of the houses being named ‘The Jim and Sue Morton House’.

“They’ll always be a need for houses in Nepal, they live in one of the poorest countries in the world, there’s always earthquakes. There's monsoons, just every bit of bad weather gets thrown at them,” he said.

“The Ghurkas serve the British army; they come over here and they serve our country and it's only right that we can look after them in their old age,” said Jim.

The Pennine Way is a 268-mile walking route that runs from Edale, Derbyshire, right up to the borders of Scotland and is regarded as one of the most challenging and rewarding walks that goes through Britain’s rocky spine, crossing through the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines and Hadrian’s wall.

Jim and Stephen are carrying 12.7kg of equipment on their hike.

Jim explained how different this walk will be from the others.

He said: “Normally I would have a back up crew with me, but this time I won’t have that it’ll be rough living, staying at campsites and wherever we can get our heads down. We have everything we’ll need from sleeping bags to food rations. It’ll be the case of looking out for each other.

“It’s going to be tough, we'll be walking over rocky terrain, bogs and over a lot of hills.”

You can follow all their progress via the Facebook page ‘I may be gone a while.’