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Walking it Through: An asthmatic’s walking diary
What do you do when you were the shy, bullied asthmatic who was always last to be picked during team selection at school?
Give up and accept you’ll never be good at sport?
Not Stephen Smith. As a young man he donned walking boots and set off on an adventure to climb The Munros – the 282 highest mountains in Scotland. Having completed that he hoped to settle down. But unable to 'find the one', he set himself a new challenge – to complete all the 1432 mountains of the British Isles. After twenty years of walking, and achieving 960 of the mountains, he met 'the one'. Then another life changing event led to him work through his obsessive workaholic nature and retire his walking ambitions.
In this second volume of Stephen's hill-walking diaries you can follow his adventures from New Zealand's Milford Track and Australia's Wilsons Prom, to walking all the Welsh and English Nuttalls, the Scottish Donalds, half the Corbetts and seven coast to coast adventures across Scotland on the TGO Challenge.
From 111 miles in five days catching up after a stomach bug to the sweltering heat of the Australian bush, Stephen recounts his walks, his life and his loves.
'Stephen has a quirk to his style of narration with little anecdotes in among the description of place and adventure or misadventure that makes this easy to read and enjoy.' Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Winner of the Bath Short Story Award 2013.
Give up and accept you’ll never be good at sport?
Not Stephen Smith. As a young man he donned walking boots and set off on an adventure to climb The Munros – the 282 highest mountains in Scotland. Having completed that he hoped to settle down. But unable to 'find the one', he set himself a new challenge – to complete all the 1432 mountains of the British Isles. After twenty years of walking, and achieving 960 of the mountains, he met 'the one'. Then another life changing event led to him work through his obsessive workaholic nature and retire his walking ambitions.
In this second volume of Stephen's hill-walking diaries you can follow his adventures from New Zealand's Milford Track and Australia's Wilsons Prom, to walking all the Welsh and English Nuttalls, the Scottish Donalds, half the Corbetts and seven coast to coast adventures across Scotland on the TGO Challenge.
From 111 miles in five days catching up after a stomach bug to the sweltering heat of the Australian bush, Stephen recounts his walks, his life and his loves.
'Stephen has a quirk to his style of narration with little anecdotes in among the description of place and adventure or misadventure that makes this easy to read and enjoy.' Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Winner of the Bath Short Story Award 2013.
731 pages, Paperback
Published November 28, 2022
About the author
Stephen P. Smith
9 books2 followersStephen P. Smith is a British fiction author specialising in the aftermath and loss of the World Wars with a second genre of comedy. He also writes non-fiction, covering his hill-walking, IT and Charlie Chaplin.
In January 2025 he published his third novel, 'The Last Secret of The Soul' about ten-year-old Feitel Scher's harrowing journey through the Holocaust unveiling a tale of courage, resilience, and the enduring bond between a mother and her son. Separated at the gates of a concentration camp, Feitel grapples with loss and loneliness, clinging to her last words: 'Find somebody to look after you.' As he navigates the horrors of the concentration camp and witnesses the devastation of war-torn Berlin, Feitel's quest to find sanctuary and someone to care for him becomes a poignant story of hope in the face of unimaginable darkness.
Stephen's second was a best-selling novella, 'The Veteran and The Boy', published in 2018. Set in 1930s rural England where the Great War still casts its shadow. One ex-soldier, ‘The Veteran’, is suffering from shellshock and spends his days wandering between the market town of Devizes and the surrounding villages. He’s as outcast as the bullied schoolboy, Billy Shelton, who he befriends and protects. But when The Veteran is accused of a crime its Billy's turn to step in and protect him. Described as 'A bewitching story of a homeless World War 1 with a dark and powerful ending'.
In 2018 he published his first novel, 'The Unsound Convictions of Judge Stephen Mentall'. Stephen describes this as an irreverent, high-pace, anarchistic romp, covering contemporary topics such as the sexual shenanigans of once untouchable establishment figures, police force mergers, poor quality care homes and the struggles the establishment has in keeping pace with political correctness.
Stephen has had books published on computer programming, Charlie Chaplin, (a biography entitled 'The Charlie Chaplin Walk') and two best-selling autobiographies charting his hill-walking entitled 'The Munros' and 'Walking it Through'.
Stephen has a first class honours degree in Computing and Electronics, a field he then worked in for thirty years before retiring in 2017 to concentrate on his writing and hill walking.
Stephen is also a seasoned rail campaigner and in 2013 he received Rail Future's Clara Zilahi Award for Best Campaigner.
In January 2025 he published his third novel, 'The Last Secret of The Soul' about ten-year-old Feitel Scher's harrowing journey through the Holocaust unveiling a tale of courage, resilience, and the enduring bond between a mother and her son. Separated at the gates of a concentration camp, Feitel grapples with loss and loneliness, clinging to her last words: 'Find somebody to look after you.' As he navigates the horrors of the concentration camp and witnesses the devastation of war-torn Berlin, Feitel's quest to find sanctuary and someone to care for him becomes a poignant story of hope in the face of unimaginable darkness.
Stephen's second was a best-selling novella, 'The Veteran and The Boy', published in 2018. Set in 1930s rural England where the Great War still casts its shadow. One ex-soldier, ‘The Veteran’, is suffering from shellshock and spends his days wandering between the market town of Devizes and the surrounding villages. He’s as outcast as the bullied schoolboy, Billy Shelton, who he befriends and protects. But when The Veteran is accused of a crime its Billy's turn to step in and protect him. Described as 'A bewitching story of a homeless World War 1 with a dark and powerful ending'.
In 2018 he published his first novel, 'The Unsound Convictions of Judge Stephen Mentall'. Stephen describes this as an irreverent, high-pace, anarchistic romp, covering contemporary topics such as the sexual shenanigans of once untouchable establishment figures, police force mergers, poor quality care homes and the struggles the establishment has in keeping pace with political correctness.
Stephen has had books published on computer programming, Charlie Chaplin, (a biography entitled 'The Charlie Chaplin Walk') and two best-selling autobiographies charting his hill-walking entitled 'The Munros' and 'Walking it Through'.
Stephen has a first class honours degree in Computing and Electronics, a field he then worked in for thirty years before retiring in 2017 to concentrate on his writing and hill walking.
Stephen is also a seasoned rail campaigner and in 2013 he received Rail Future's Clara Zilahi Award for Best Campaigner.
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May 6, 2023
It would be wrong to give anything other than five stars for an old school friends tales of climbing mountain after mountain in usually dreadful weather. Some of his jokes probably more in the two star region. Learnt news words - cairn, trig point, altimeter… read slightly too much about bowel movements and the relative cost of parking. Well done Steve - it’s good to think of you at home with Margaret and Nancy rather than munching pickled eggs and mini cheddars in a lay by somewhere remote
Displaying 1 of 1 review