I remember when this walk across England was planned, organised and booked, it was a daunting thought, 190 miles of ups, downs and overs, and all on foot.

It’d all started about a year before. Lou, my wife, Ned our border terrier and I were in the Lake District in our VW camper, we’d stopped for a couple of nights in Patterdale, at the southern end of Ullswater. In the village shop, the kind that has pretty much everything, Lou bought a beautiful little book, written by a man called A.Wainwright, the title, sounding ever so matter of fact, was ‘A Coast to Coast Walk’. That was the moment, the seed was sown.

How far had I walked in one day before? 10 maybe 12 miles on the Isle of Skye? I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it day after day though, that sort of thing I’d remember. 190 miles, it’s quite a distance, I recall being in the car and setting the mileometer to zero and then driving, over every mile as it crept to 190, I kept thinking, ‘...I will be walking this, all of it’.

As the day approached I was intrigued to discover who else might be following in the footsteps of Wainwright and why were they doing it?

As a photographer I wanted to capture our walk in some way, but I also wanted to make a record of the people I’d meet and their stories of why they too had succumbed to the romance of this long walk. I’d figured out the idea, found a white picture frame that would not become a weighty burden and packed my not so lightweight camera.

All that was left, was to start walking.