Purdie Worldwide's
Charity Challenge 2024
After the unrivalled success of our 2023 Mighty Hike, we’re back again, but this time we’re not just doing a Mighty Hike! We’re also going to scale the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis!
Quiz Night 2024
On Saturday the 27th of July, over 70 people sat down to enjoy our annual Quiz Night! Hosted by the ever dependable Blackburn Bowling Club, not only did we have 14 teams competing for the £100 grand prize, we also had several fundraising games for all the family!
As well as our quiz, we had a Guess My Mighty Time, which saw people guessing at our times for this year’s Mighty Hike. The closest one to each time will get half the winnings, with the other half going towards Macmillan Cancer Support.
We also had several football scratch cards going round, that even made it through to the member’s bar, so a huge thank you to all of you that donated a pint or two for that! However, one of our most popular games was the Guess Where Our Truck Is, competition! With a map on display showing all the countries, it wasn’t until the 3rd last guess that Graeme from the Blackburn 2011s guessed Belize as the correct location and won himself and nice crisp £20 note!
A big thanks is also required to Blackburn local, Reece Oldfield! He kindly 2 tickets to see Manchester City play at the Etihad, including a hotel and breakfast, as part of our silent auction! These managed to raise an impressive £220 on the night!
When purchasing your entry ticket, you were also buying a raffle ticket for our 32 inch smart TV. With 72 tickets sold at £5 each, we raised £360 from the entry tickets. At the end of the night we picked a random number between 0 and 73 and the winner was chosen as Leslie-Ann Scoular from the Uphill Racers, who glad accepted the TV and claimed it would look fabulous in her campervan!
All in all we had 14 teams register for the quiz, netting us a cool £280 just from the registration fees alone! We had 50 questions on the screen with various topics covered, from who was the first women to win a Nobel Prize, to guessing if an octopus has yellow blood! We tried to cover as many topics as possible, to keep it as fair as possible!
By the end of the quiz we had 2 teams on 33 out of 50, so it was tie-breaker time! We asked one representative from both teams to write down the height of Ben Nevis in metres. It was the Super Coopers that triumphed on the night, and were very kind to donate their £100 winning back to Macmillan! Thank you so much for this!
In total, the Quiz Night raised £955 for Macmillan Cancer Support! So not only have we smashed our target, we’re well on our way to hitting £1250! If you didn’t manage to make it to the quiz night and would still like to donate, just click the button below!
Ben Nevis 2024
Saturday 17th August 2024
Something that I think is on every Scot’s mind at one point or another, is to climb Ben Nevis. There’s something about being at the very top of the British Isles with nothing above you that’s almost empowering and worthy of a challenge. So in our 40th years (Robert and Mark), we’ve decided it’s either now or never to conquer this peak, whilst raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Although we had asked our MD to join us, he’s point blank refused after his experience on last year’s Mighty Hike.
At 5am on a very chilly Saturday morning, a team of 9 set-off from Purdie HQ bound for Glen Nevis. Our route to the top of Ben Nevis would be the traditional Pony Track, also known as the Tourist Trail. A 10 mile route up and down, via a path made from large boulders, forming steps at various points along the way. We were all warned that not only would this be a hard slog, we’d need to be extra careful the higher up we went. The weather forecast looked ominously bleak, and the mountain summit forecast predicted 60mph winds and -6 degrees at the top come midday! After a swift trip up, we gathered in the car park of the Ben Nevis visitor centre, and got ready for an adventure that would see only 7 hikers return back to the visitor centre.
The Team
On this expedition we had veteran Mighty Hiker Peter Sneddon from Purdie Property Maintenance, who managed to convince his wife, Lee-Ann, it would be a great idea. Oh how wrong he was!
Fresh from the removal trucks we had Stewart Bell, sporting a Celtic Tartan kilt combined with every green item of clothing he could find in his wardrobe. Simon, the last of the Cooper brothers to summit Ben Nevis, and proud all year round short wearer joined us. Then we had Jimmy Dunlop. Not much is known about Jimmy, as he’s only been with us for only a short period of time, but rumour has it he’s the son of old Saint Nick!
From the office we had two more veteran Mighty Hikers in the shape of our GM, Robert Cooper, and our Marketing Manager, Mark Scoular, both of whom proudly wore shorts too!
We were also accompanied by veteran football coach, Graeme Miller from our local and sponsored club, Blackburn United. A keen fitness fan, Graeme has never climbed a Munro before, so what better one to start off than Ben Nevis! Lastly, but by no means least, the Sherpa of the group, Matthew Prince from A.M. Phillip Trucktech. A Blackburn resident, Matt has been training our Marketing Manager over the past few months, and volunteered to be our guide on his second ascent of Nevis. As you’ll soon find out, we couldn’t have done it without him!
The Ascent
Before we knew it, we were off over the bridge, and marching towards the summit. The weather had been particularly wet over the past week, leaving the path rather damp, with the rocks proving to be very slippy to say the least.
In fact, our first casualty about 1 mile in was Mark, our Marketing Manager. His cheap Chinese pole decided it had had enough of the Scottish countryside and snapped, causing Mark to fall backwards and was narrowly stopped from heading over the edge by Graeme!
One thing that struck us all when climbing Ben Nevis, was how busy it was! Even with the poor weather, you were never more than a few feet away from another walker. It is the UK’s highest mountain, but it did feel like a tourist trail at times, with some not exactly dressed for climbing a mountain!
By the time we had reached the half-way loch, where it flattens out a bit, we had split into 3 groups. Up front we had Matt, Simon, Graeme, Jimmy and Stu, Mark in the middle on his own, and Robert bringing up the rear with Peter and Lee-Ann.
Unfortunately, as we passed the waterfall, the cloud came in and reduced our vision to about 10 metres. It was very eerie, not being able to see where you were heading, let alone where you had been. The temperature had dropped to almost freezing, and without gloves there was no desire to pull out the phone and check how far there was to go. So we plodded on.
After 3 hours of climbing, the first group managed to reach the summit. However, the weather on top was horrifically bad. The temperature was down to -6 and we were getting battered by 60mph winds. Although there were still 3 main groups, Stewart had dropped back and was now walking up with Mark in the middle group.
The last mile seemed to go on forever. Boulder after boulder stood in our way, with only faint cairns in the distance guiding you towards the summit. You had to pay particular attention when navigating this last section. Little did we know the clouds were obscuring the 1000ft drop either side of the path, and at times we were closer to the edge than we would’ve liked!
After about the 50th photograph of Stewart in his kilt with passerby’s, Mark and Stu finally summited, meeting the first group who had been struggling to find any kind of shelter from the weather for about 20 minutes.
After touching the cairn, we shared a little dram with one another to toast our achievements, before the first group began their descent. Mark and Stewart remained at the top for as long as they could, waiting on Robert, Peter and Lee-Ann. However, after 30 minutes of waiting, the weather got even worse.
Without gloves, hands were numb and freezing, even your lips were so cold and numb you struggled to form sentences! So the decision was made to start heading back down in the hope we’d pass the last group on their way to the summit.
The Summit!
About half a mile from the summit, Stewart and Mark ran into Robert on his way to the summit. He explained that Lee-Ann had really hurt her knee further down, and wasn’t sure if she’d make it. By this time the weather had gotten even worse and we couldn’t fathom returning to the summit and wanted to get down and out of the clouds as quickly as possible. So a huge kudos to Lee-Ann who was full of grit and determination as we passed her on her final summit push about 1 mile from the target.
Fortunately, she met up with Robert and Peter on the summit where they proudly displayed the Macmillan banner and took shelter in the old observatory for a well earned mini lunch break!
About 2 miles from the top, whilst still in cloud, we could hear the drone of a helicopter getting closer and closer. It was a very disconcerting feeling knowing that there was a helicopter flying very close by, but not being able to see it! Just before the waterfall, we discovered why the helicopter was in the area. An older gentleman had taken a fall on his way back down the mountain and was rather badly injured. There was no way the helicopter could get close, so until they could arrive by foot, Matt had wrapped the casualty in a foil blanket and ensured they had enough food and water. Unfortunately that wasn’t the first casualty that required Mountain Rescue, in total there were 5 call-outs that day. The busiest day in August on record for the Mountain Rescue team! Not sure we could’ve picked a worse Summer‘s day for it!
The Descent
The first group absolutely smashed the descent in under 2 hours. Stewart and Mark took slightly longer at 2 and half hours, and in their opinion the route down was just as hard as the route up. Due to the wet and slippy rocks you really had to pay attention to every single step you took. It wasn’t just as simple as walking down stairs, with some rocks bigger than others, more slippy and sometimes even loose! You couldn’t take it slowly either. You had to go with the downward momentum, or else the pain through your knees if you tried to slow yourself down was terribly painful!
6 hours and 10 minutes after they left the Visitor Centre, Mark and Stewart met up with the first group just outside the Ben Nevis Inn, where a few pints had been swallowed in celebration. However, these celebrations would be a little short lived.
Robert arrived back alone about 30 minutes later. He informed us that Lee-Ann was really struggling with her knee and coming down each step was agony for her. It was at this point where our fearless Sherpa Matt, sprung into action. I don’t think any of us had any energy reserves left to go back up, but Matt didn’t care. He grabbed supplies from everyone, filled his bag back up, and set off back up the hill to rescue Lee-Ann.
The Rescue
Fortunately, we were smart enough to install tracking software called Life360 onto our phones before we set off. This gave us a real time GPS position of everyone, so it was relatively easy to locate Peter and Lee-Ann. Unfortunately they were only half way down and progressing at a very slow pace.
It was touch and go for a while, where we debated in our minds whether we’d need to call on Mountain Rescue or not. However, Matt had a cunning plan! He would go back up and take Peter and Lee-Ann down the old path to the youth hostel. This would reduce the distance she had to travel by almost 2 miles. So we all got on-board the mini-bus and headed towards the youth hostel further down into Glen Nevis
About 30 minutes later we could spot 2 figures supporting a single person heading slowly down the path. To say we were relieved we would be an understatement. After about an hour we were all finally reunited at the youth hostel, complete with swollen knees and very tired legs. Had we known how bad the weather was going to be, I’m not sure any one of us would have chosen to go up Ben Nevis that day. We saw countless people heading up the mountain completely underprepared! Some were in jeans and a t-shirt, and some even had crocs on! So although we’re incredibly glad we managed to conquer Ben Nevis, I’m not so sure any of us will be up Ben Nevis via that route any time soon. Unfortunately, the whole place seemed more like a tourist trap than an epic adventure in the Scottish Highlands. A huge thanks to the volunteers from Mountain Rescue, and let’s hope the Mighty Hike will be a lot easier this time round!
Mighty Hike 2024
Saturday 31st August 2024
Having completed the Mighty Hike last year in over 9 hours, there was a real desire from Mark, Robert and Peter to improve on their time this year. A 26.2 mile Mighty Hike along the Rob Roy Way, that starts in Callander, round Loch Venachar down to Aberfoyle. Before heading back up towards Callander in one big loop. Although not as high as a Ben Nevis, it’s almost 3 times the distance and is a pure endurance event. Although we’ve not managed to convince Neil and Keith to join us again, we did manage to convince Mark’s wife, and ex-PE teacher, Alex to join us. Along with Stewart Bell and Jimmy Dunlop, 2 of our top porters!
The forecast looked a million times different for the Mighty Hike compared to Ben Nevis. A proper Summer’s day was on order, as we all gathered at Claish Farm, just outside of Callander at 6am.
As is always the case for an Official Macmillan event, everything was straightforward and the organisation was second to none. From the Macmillan shop, to the compère for the day, everything was not only very green, but inspired you and made you feel like you were part of something much bigger!
Last year we started in one of the later batches, but this year we wanted to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. As such we chose the earliest possible start time and were put into the 6:50am group with about 100 other hikers. At 6:30am we were all called to the start line, where we were treated to a little bit of stretching and aerobics to get us limbered up for the day ahead.
Before we knew it, the timer had went and we were off and walking! We tried to keep near the front to start with, but some people were literally jogging along, and the temptation to join them was fairly strong. We kept excellent pace as we headed through Callander and started to climb the side of Ben Ledi and along the banks of Loch Venachar towards Kilmahog.
Pit-Stop
The first pit stop was around mile 7. We knew from last year that we didn’t need to take nearly as many supplies as we had taken last time, as they literally feed you every 7 miles. All you really need to take is a 2 litre bottle of water that you can fill up at each pit stop as you go. At each pit stop you were presented with row upon row of oranges, bananas and even pineapple! If you weren’t a fruit fan they had various Alpen bars, crisps and even Freddos on offer!
We managed to keep an excellent pace of around 16 minute miles to reach the first checkpoint in a time of 2 hours and 2 minutes. This time actually placed us in the Top 90 out of over 900 starters, with the fastest time being 1 hour 56 minutes, so at this stage we were well on course to beat our target time from last year.
We stayed for about 10 minutes at the first pit stop, before heading off onto the Three Lochs Drive that would takes us down and into Aberfoyle for the lunch stop. We kept as a group at this point, even with the sharp right turn that took us up a long and uneven climb, that saw some hikers turn back.
The route down to Aberfoyle certainly felt a lot longer than it did last year, but this may have been due to the rumblings in our bellies and a craving for carbs! So although the route varied slightly into the lunch stop, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted as one of the first groups to make it to lunch before midday!
Lunchtime Stroll
Last year, by the time we got the lunch stop most of the food was gone and the remaining sweet foods like doughnuts, were surrounded by very angry wasps. So it was another pleasant surprise to have a complete compliment of food on offer, both hot and cold.
We probably spent longer than we should’ve at lunch, but the food and excellent weather were very welcome to our weary and tired legs. After finishing lunch most of us changed our socks and revelled in how comfy a new pair of socks felt after 14 miles of hard walking.
At this point we were all in good spirits. We had made excellent time and were ahead of schedule with no one suffering any injuries thus far. However, those of us that did the hike last year knew exactly what lay ahead of us after lunch…
As soon as you leave the lunch spot at Aberfoyle, you start a climb that lasts about 2 or 3 miles. You think you’re at the top, turn a corner, and you’re presented with another hill to conquer. It was utterly soul destroying, especially with a big belly full of food and no real motivation. We tried to reassure the first timers like Alex and Stu that once they reached the top of this hill it would be downhill all the way to the finish. However, although this was the case last year, what we didn’t know was that they had changed the route this year!
Through the Bog and Beyond…
It was at this point where we started to spread out. Mark and Alex led the way up the hill followed by Stu, with Peter, Robert and Jimmy bringing up the rear. After cresting what we thought was the last of the hills we were presented with a massive bog. Last year we had detour through some woods to avoid the bog, but this year they obviously thought it would be a great laugh to send us through this bog. In fact, the bog was so bad it took Mark’s walking boots clean off his feet, leaving him shoe-less and balancing precariously on one leg!
Midway through the bog, Jimmy had had enough and lit his afterburners. He strolled past everyone and we wouldn’t see him again until the very end. He’d go on to finish in 55th place overall out of more than 900 entrants!
Fortunately, by the time we got to the last checkpoint, Robert, Stu and Peter had caught up with Mark and Alex and we enjoyed a well deserved break by the loch side. Stu took the opportunity to remove his boots and apply some plasters to his massive blisters.
It wasn’t until we left the final checkpoint, that I think we all realised how knackered we were. The pace had slowed down to 20 minute miles instead of 16, and we were all longing for the end. With only 3.4 miles to go, we thought it would be plain sailing along the loch to the end, just like last year. However, we were very wrong.
The Last Hill?!
As we followed the path along the loch we noticed some of the arrows weren’t pointing in the direction we had anticipated. In fact, as we got closer we realised there was an abrupt right hand turn off the main road. As we turned the corner we were met with another massive hill with no peak in sight. There was a collective groan as we all got our heads down and slowly marched up the hill. It was at this point where things got really tough. All 5 of us struggled to keep at the same pace, with injuries holding some back, and tiredness holding back others. Jokes were made about Peter’s groin strain, but to his dismay, nobody offered him a helping hand.
By the time we crested the hill and made it down the other side towards the finish line, Stu and Alex were quite far back. We hadn’t come all this way together just to split up over the final mile. So the decision was made to wait on them a couple of hundred metres from the finish line so we could finish it as a group of 5. Crossing the finish line was a feeling I’m sure none of us will ever forget. From the compère proudly reading out your names as you cross the finish line, to the raucous applause and glasses of bubbly, it was a proud moment for us all. Together we had completed the Mighty Hike in a time of 8 Hours and 55 minutes! That’s almost an hour quicker than the time Mark and Neil did last year! Finally reunited with Jimmy, the six of us all proudly claimed that we would never to another Mighty Hike! Well….that is until Tuesday morning when Robert asks if you fancy doing another one next year!
We’ve not quite hit our target of £2000 quite yet, so there’s still time to click the button below and donate what you can for Macmillan Cancer Support!
