“Dad always used to say you never know when somebody you know is going to need the hospice or yourself.”   

– Jo Smith, speaking of her father Bill Bradley, Co-Founder (with Frank Stevens) of Walk the Wight

May 12, 2024, the annual Mountbatten charity event, Walk the Wight, recently awarded the Island’s “Top Event of the Year” by Isle of Wight Radio . The Walk began in 1991, the brain-child of two colleagues from Morey’s Timber Yard, Bill Bradley and Frank Stevens.

The two loved the Island, its views and vegetation and the sound of birdsong early mornings. Initially they conceived the Walk as a team-building exercise for Morey’s. It was a physical challenge, taking in the full 26.5 mile width of the Island East to West and a fundraising event to boot (no pun intended).

The event quickly became connected to Mountbatten; Dale Godfrey, Mountbatten’s first Fund Raising Director, remembers meeting with Frank and Bill in 1993 along with the Hospice’s Volunteer Coordinator, Barbara Whitewood. At the time, the aim was to raise 2000 pounds “which,” Dale said, “seemed a heck of a lot of money.”

*

Today the Walk is the largest walk of its kind in Europe – on Sunday 9500 walkers took part. It is managed by Mountbatten’s Fundraising Manager/Major Events Fundraiser, Lorraine White. Three days after the event and funds are still coming in, but so far this year’s event has so far raised a staggering 450,000 pounds [update one day after this blog was published: the figure has now risen to 470,000 pounds and continues to rise; update one week on: the figure is now 500,000 pounds].

On the day, thanks to Communications Head, Matt White, Tia rode along, from checkpoint to checkpoint, in a Courtesy Car donated for the day – complete with flag holders and full tank of gas – by a Premier Rental, a local firm:

Tia was honoured to be drafted into work for a couple of hours as one of the 500  event volunteers who work alongside Hospice staff:

*

The full route is nearly 26.5 miles, East to West but there are in fact six ways to walk it: the full distance, two half versions, a flat walk, a schools walk, plus:  

“Walk the Wight Your Way: You can still Walk the Wight Your Way, whether you want to clock up the miles by walking your dog each day, using a walking machine at the gym or riding your horse; the choice is yours.”

In 2020, during the pandemic, option 7 became the option. The walk continued. People innovated, logging laps through runs, garden routes, treadmill miles and sometimes donning fancy dress:

On the 2024 walk, the sense of fun, even carnival, was pervasive:

The element of playfulness certainly checked any notion that the Walk might be about completing or competing. As Jo Smith put it in conversation with Tia:

Jo: I’ve gone from being on the committee at one point to giving out medals at the end and when I give out the medals it’s great because they come in and they say, oh, we’ve only done half and I say, ‘only’? I say you’ve just done thirteen miles I say that’s no mean feat you know.

Tia:      That is major.

Jo:        And there’s no ‘only’ about it.

*

Some come to the Walk each year to challenge themselves. Some actually run the full 26.5 miles of rough and varied terrain. One 80-year-old lady completed the walk with her daughter. One young woman decorated her wheel chair with a giant butterfly (“spreading my wings for Mountbatten”) and completed the flat walk with her husband. The Walk’s Facebook page features proud children who managed the full walk. There is jubilance around these achievements and mutual joy. They are fully celebrated.  At the same time, the fun and the personal bests mingle with a more serious, existential thread. Many participants were there to remember, to celebrate the lives of loved ones who had died, and to thank Mountbatten for its loving care of those family members and friends.  Tia saw one group of young men all wearing tee shirts printed with a portrait of a friend and the words, “For ___.”

There were families walking in remembrance, in a kind of pilgrimage to departed members. There were husbands and wives and grandchildren and parents and friends. Each walker with unique reasons for being there but drawn together out in the elements, on this beautiful Island, for this – in every sense – moving event.

*