Henry is the trustee and organiser of Exmoor 30:30, a test of teamwork, stamina and endurance in which teams have the choice of hiking across 30 miles or 30 km of moorland with each participant carrying 30lb of equipment. It is now in its fourth year, and Henry says the organisers have finally ‘nailed it’ in terms of format. The event was arguably too difficult to begin with. In 2009 and 2010 the 30 mile route was the only option and only two teams managed to finish the course. As one of those was from the Norwegian equivalent of the SAS, it suggested things were a little tough. But in 2011 all the teams made it.
As a former reservist, Henry says: “The lesson learned was that you can’t impose military conventions on a civilian charitable event. For example, 30 miles in a military context is measured in a straight line on a map from point to point, which takes no account of gradient or the fact that people don’t walk in straight lines. In the first two years people were actually walking 38 miles instead of 30 and so we decided to change how we measured it.”
He is keen to emphasise that this is not a macho, military event. “We’re open to all-comers. We have under-18s, over-40s, boys, girls, wounded service people. It’s a challenging race and you have to be fit, but it’s a competition in good spirit,” he says.
What makes this event special is that the money raised goes exclusively to The Royal British Legion. “It’s a unique platform from which to generate a magnificent amount of money for The Legion,” Henry says.
The event has a special relationship with the local Legion branch, South Molton, whose Chairman is Paddy King-Fretts, a former SAS squadron commander and commanding officer of the Devon & Dorset Regiment, Henry called on Paddy’s knowledge to help him develop links with the farming community so that participants would be allowed to tramp unchallenged across the countryside. Last year Paddy told Henry he reckoned he could get a team together from his branch. Henry was a little surprised, believing that most of the branch’s members were beyond the age to be taking part in 30 mile endurance marches. But Paddy has been busy with a new recruitment strategy. He had a word with Barney Andrews, ex-RAF Regiment and now a police officer.
Barney says: “A few of us younger members thought we’d give it a go. It offered the chance to do a bit of training, spend time outdoors and get wet, muddy, cold and tired. We thought it’d be fun.” He got a team of likeminded ‘fun-seekers’ together – himself, Paul Hackman, Ian Marchant, Joe Hoar and Ed Pell, all service or ex-service people – and started a serious training regime, which included doing the entire course two weeks ahead of the event.
The tactic paid off. Not only were they the fastest team (they completed the course on the day in 8 hours 55 minutes) but they also raised the most money for the Legion: £13,500. Chairman Paddy is rightly proud of his men. “When you think that part of the Royal Marines‘ training is a 30 mile march across Dartmoor after months of intensive training and they have to do it in 8 hours – and our guys did 30 miles in 9 hours and they’ve got regular jobs with no time off to train…it shows how good they were.”
Barney does admit it was a struggle to fit in training around his shift work. “But we set out to win it from the get-go,” he says.
The team would like to have another go this year – although with Paul Hackman preparing to be mobilised to go to Afghanistan, the line-up will be different. And with Henry turning his attention to getting more teams to take part, perhaps the competition will be stiffer? For Barney, though, the competition is only part of it. “It’s a great cause to support, especially with the number of lads coming back from conflicts with injuries and wounds. The Legion is particularly relevant now,” he says.