Derek Brown
It’s 2025 and three years have passed since we completed the West Highland Way. Sadly Del Boy is no longer with us, having succumbed to bowel cancer in February, just six months after diagnosis. His sudden passing was a great shock to us all.
Derek Brown 1954 – 2025
He was “the sun that kept us planets rotating”, as one of the Brothers remarked on hearing the sad news. Del Boy kept all the old gang in regular contact and was often the instigator of new adventures, or a get-together when any of us were in the vicinity.
Prior to the 1,000 Years Hike he had surgery to replace both knees and spent many hours exercising in the gym, purportedly to get himself fitter, but we knew his ulterior motive was the West Highland Way. When Del Boy put his mind to something, nothing as trivial as two new knee joints was going to stop him. He had proudly completed the Hike and would have loved nothing more than to have been with us in Fife, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.
We miss our lost Brother enormously.
As a group we had talked about doing another walk but nothing concrete had transpired. Club and Knuckles had traipsed off on their own to Everest Base Camp last year and, clearly needing some warmer weather, Club followed this up with 11 days on the Camino de Santiago earlier this year. Generally the rest of us have been nursing aches, sprains and a variety of those niggling ailments that come with advancing years. But the desire to explore the great outdoors together again remained.
Eventually we settled on three days hiking a section of the Fife Coastal Path in September 2025 to coincide with Club and Jeth’s 70th birthday celebrations. Six of the original Brothers – Radar, Pud, Jeth, Ashtead, Club and Elton – and two other old friends who hadn’t been able to join the original hike – Harry and Mushroom – were up for the challenge.
Last of the Summer Wine
At the start of the walk the eight participants had an aggregate age of 560 years – averaging 70 years young. All could be cast in the classic sitcom but who’d be Nora Batty? All our cast members are male. Plenty of wrinkly socks round the ankles though, and every single one powered by wine.
The cast of this particular sitcom and their respective conditions:
Murray “Mushroom” Marr – 72, no declared injuries
Ian “Ashtead” Crighton – 71, screws in ankle
Graham “Harry” Wilson – 70, hip replacement
Doug “Pud” Paterson – 70, hip replacement and back problems
Lindsay “Club” Johnston- 70, accident prone Euros guru
Gordon “Jeth” Emslie – 70, no declared injuries
Billy “Radar” Campbell – 69, back issues
Neil “Elton” Anderson – 68, dropped foot and knee problems
The planning started on March 27th with a proposal to walk from East Wemyss to St Andrews. As before we are scattered across the globe so we communicated via WhatsApp. (All evidence of dementia therefore has a permanent record.) The Bank – a hotel in Anstruther – was booked for June 23rd for two nights and two restaurants – The Bank on night one and The Dreel Inn on night two – were also booked.
Various iterations of the route were discussed and with each change the route shortened. It was eventually agreed we would walk from Lower Largo to St Andrews – a reduction of seven miles.
The next suggestion was that as we were walking such short daily distances it would be a good idea to play golf one afternoon. After all, the East Neuk of Fife is a golfing Mecca, comprising Lundin Links, Dumbarnie, Elie, Anstruther and Crail, with Kingsbarns and the many courses of St. Andrews to the north.
This idea received short shrift as it ignored the logistics of transporting the necessary equipment.
On September 12th Elton woke up and suggested a possible route until he realised it had already been organised. (“Organised” is stretching it – Ed.)
The day before we departed we finalised a few issues; who was driving and where would we meet. It was decided that we would meet in Anstruther as that was the putative destination for the first day and we could leave the cars there. Mushroom then pointed out that coming from Edinburgh he would need to drive past the start point of Lower Largo on the way there (as, presumably, would Jeth). Harry then realised he needed transport from Broughty Ferry. A flurry of phone calls and messages later, Radar offered to drive Ashtead and Harry, and took the opportunity to test the voice controls of his satnav. The satnav (Holly? HAL? – Ed) had an “Eleventh Floor” moment and decided the required destination was St Clements Place in Dundee. After a number of failed attempts Radar typed in the destination and they set off.
Eventually everybody arrived in Lower Largo, with a number of vehicles left for pickup in….. St Monans.
Somewhere in the planning phase we had lost the section between St Monans and Anstruther. “Herding cats” came to mind.
The satnav had won.