Finding Hildasay: How one man walked the UK's coastline and found hope and happiness

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Finding Hildasay: How one man walked the UK’s coastline and found hope and happiness by Christian Lewis In my mind, I would imagine the worst-case scenario and make sure I was ready for it. If I was to snap a leg in one of the wild sections of Scotland edging around a mountain, I would work out what I would need and that would be all I took. My foraging skills were something I was getting much better at, and if I had wi-fi, I’d always be jotting down tips in my journal and then putting them into practice. Christian Lewis is sitting in the kitchen of a family home that is not his own, having only met the owners once before, near St Peter Port, Guernsey. He needed a reliable internet connection to do this interview and the family, who have followed his journey on social media, offered him their place. This, says Lewis over Zoom, is “not the first time things like this have happened”. That’s putting it mildly. Publishing director Sara Cywinski acquired world all language rights directly from the author. Lydia Ramah, Pan non-fiction editor, will edit the book. The book will be published on February 2023.

Life on the edge: meet the man who walked around the UK

Mr Lewis said the book would show people “the reality of what this walk was like from the beginning”. Now I was finally out of the force of the wind, my body began to warm – the part where the real pain sets in. I’d felt it plenty of times before on this journey, but this time it was different. As I began to regain feeling in my fingers and toes, it burned so strongly that I just sat in tears of pain.’Now I was finally out of the force of the wind, my body began to warm - the part where the real pain sets in. I'd felt it plenty of times before on this journey, but this time it was different. As I began to regain feeling in my fingers and toes, it burned so strongly that I just sat in tears of pain.'

book in Sidmouth UK coast walker Christian Lewis to sign his book in Sidmouth

A self-described “all-or-nothing kind of guy”, Lewis has added even more to his adventure, completing the Three Peaks challenge – climbing the mountains of Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis – along the way. Not only, he says, has it restored his faith in humanity, it’s also how he met Kate, the woman who is now his wife and with whom he has a son, and a pet dog, Jet – a lurcher cross. In his darkest depression, one idea brought Christian Lewis out of the depths - and into a new life. Finding Hildasay, read by the author, is a brutal and beautiful true story of depression, survival, walking, and the meaning of home.Finding Hildasay is Christian Lewis’s brutal but beautiful true story of survival, walking the coast of Britain – his dog Jet in tow – and finding a different way to live. With a foreword from longtime supporter Ben Fogle. Pan Macmillan has bagged Finding Hildasay, a memoir from veteran Chris Lewis which reflects on his time spent walking the United Kingdom coastline.