Steve and Christine Hang Up Their Boots

Date posted: Jan 27, 2022

Lives will be saved by Steve's Trigpoint Challenge

Two Whitchurch Rotarians have hung up their walking boots after a 12-month fundraising project that can now continue to save countless more lives.

On New Year’s Day 2021 Steve Chisholm and his wife Christine Collen set out to visit Shropshire’s 96 trig points.

And on 30 December they finished the year having climbed 71 of them and raising more than £8,300 for the Rotary club’s ‘Lifeline’ service - a home call system that enables elderly and vulnerable people to summon emergency help when they need it.

❝“It has been an interesting year, and one we will never forget,” says Steve. “We’ve been to remote parts of the county that we otherwise might never have seen and the scenery, for the most part, has been fabulous. Although some of the walks were hard, it’s been an amazing experience for so many different reasons and the satisfaction has far outweighed the sore feet and aching legs.”

Trig points are a nationwide network of stone pillars that have made it possible to measure and map the UK landscape since they were first set up in 1936.

Steve has been fascinated by their history and use since he was at school – so tracking down the surviving Shropshire features became a personal challenge for him and Christine of Alkington Road, Whitchurch.

Covid restrictions stopped them reaching the county’s total of 96 trig points. But five of the stone pillars could not be traced – which means the couple were only 15 short of their target. Others were difficult to find covered by hedges, overgrown by gorse, hidden behind fences or simply moved from their original sites.

The cross country routes have stretched hundreds of miles including the Stiperstones, the Wrekin and Offa’s Dyke, while following a trail of local history - from the Cantlin Stone, which marks the 1691 death of a pedlar close to the Kerry Ridgway, to the ‘Nanny Murphy' legend of Mary Yates who walked from her home in Lizard Common to London shortly after the Great Fire of 1666.

The ‘Trig Point Challenge’ will help fund Rotary’s ‘Lifeline’ service. Since it was launched in 1993 the club has put more than 180 units into homes throughout Whitchurch and the surrounding area. They connect to telephone lines and enable elderly and vulnerable residents to alert a call centre and summon help in an emergency.

Sponsorship donations can still be made

 

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