A charity group has completed 1000km of walks across Northumberland in a project called 'The Big Smile' created by Walk and Talk Trust.

Keiron Young, 45, is the operations manager of the charity of 'Walk and Talk Trust' and said: "The Big Smile was the name given to the project by our founder, Peter Bell and the idea of the campaign was to 'put a big smile on little faces'."

"The Big Smile took 10 weeks to complete, as it was 50 walks of 20kms around five counties, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and North Yorkshire."

The first walk was on June 21 at Raby Castle and we finished on August 27 at Durham School, where they celebrated with a meal and a well deserved drink.

"We finished up at Durham School on Friday and celebrated with champagne and an Indian meal with all the team on the night. It was an incredible adventure and one we are going to repeat next year."

Mr Young, who runs the Consett Hiking Group on Facebook, which has 200 members, has also published two of his books in his spare time; The Walker published in May 2020 and The Bothy in 2021.

He continued: "The Walker was a semi-autobiographical book about a man who suffers an emotional breakdown and dismantles his life and just takes off walking. Walking was a huge support to me through difficult times and many of the people the main character is based on were from real life encounters whereas The Bothy is a mystery story concerning the fate of a group of hikers."

Currently, Keiron has sold 1000 copies in all formats and has had a variety of comments about both books but it was mostly The Walker that has captured readers' attention.

He said:"I was getting a lot of messages about The Walker from people all over the country telling me how they identified with Martin, the main character whilst others would outline their own struggles and the importance of that connection to nature.

"The Bothy is still finding its feet but again people have been generous in their feedback, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of mystery?"

All the feedback makes Keiron happy that he took the chance to publish the books.
He said: "I always wanted to write but I never felt what I'd written was good enough or I would start a story and lose interest in it. I felt that I lacked the discipline, the confidence and patience to submit something. But after some difficult times and a lot of introsepction, I'm in a much better place which has enabled me to persevere with my writing."

Additionally, he says that his family has helped while he was writing and publishing his books despite it including some sensitive subjects.

He said:" Since the first book was published, my family have been very supportive. The first book was not an easy read for them in some respects but I think they understood why I wanted to write it."

Keiron is also currently working on a screenplay of The Walker with a producer in North London, with hopes of it becoming a film.

If you want to read any of Keiron's books, they are available now on Amazon http://getbook.at/BOTHY, http://getbook.at/WLKR or author copies from Keiron via Facebook Keiron Matthew Young 12.