The third ‘Climb a Mile’ charity event, took place at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE), raising £1,000 for Help for Heroes.           

Arborists from the Arboricultural Association Scottish Branch scaled a 30m Deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) in the RBGE grounds in relay, achieving a total height of some 1,650 metres– equivalent to just over a mile in just under 5 hours – a new, if unofficial, world record. The Scottish Branch took on the challenge in aid of and to commemorate the brave efforts of our UK military service personnel, and bring together the efforts of the tree world industry in raising much needed funds. Tree surgery and forestry are both seen as tough and dangerous jobs; but not a patch on the global peace keeping operations our armed forces continue to be engaged in. Having given so much to enable us to practice our civilian trades it seems fitting that the tree care industries, who employ many ex-armed forces personnel, should support the Help for Heroes  organisation by raising funds to assist those injured on our behalf.”

Once again the reliable old lags were back to ‘play out’ with Mssrs. Clowes and Hamilton returning from retirement to show the rest of us how it used to be done with some fresh young faces turning up to show us how it should be done; we even convinced a conscientious objector to participate! The marvellous ‘Boyle Bar-B-Q’ was back again to keep spirits raised, even the chef, complete with superman T-shirt, managed 40m of the climb in between peeling onions and flipping burgers. Jon Dixon made the most individual climbs with a total of 445m, which combined with Mrs. Dixon’s 70m gave us a family contribution of around a third of a mile! Did the rest of us need to show up at all? 

Of course not everyone was able to make a physical contribution; we are helping to raise funds for Help for Heroes and supporting the climbers in doing that is vitally important. For those who missed the event, or for who this is news please visit our web site at Climbamile.com or visit http://www.bmycharity.com/climbamilescotland to donate on-line.

Thanks to David Knott at RBGE for hosting the event, to Will Hincliffe for setting up and taking down the event, to Keith Elston photographer and top ‘tin shaker’, to Tom Flannagan from H4H, to Stephen Burgess for creating and continuing to provide support for the Climbamile website, to Jamie Boyle, our own catering hero (ex parachute regiment) and of course many thanks to the guys who climbed the mile: J. Boyle, C. Coatham, R. Clowes, C. Dixon, J. Dixon, D. Goss, P. Hanson, E. Hamilton, w. Hinchcliffe, A. Jenkins, E. Maccormick, T. Minns, Cpt. A. Robinson, D. Ross, A. Slesser, G. Sutherland and P. Wilson.

Particular thanks to those dedicated few who popped in during their lunch breaks to climb – S. Cassels, M. Charkow and P. Mullaney. And of course many thanks to our long suffering wives and girlfriends for excusing the boys their usual weekend commitments.

As I grow older and become more wooden my memory fails, if I have forgotten anyone then God Bless you for your assistance. See you all again for Climbamile 2015.

Paul Hanson AA Scottish Branch Chairman