Vicki Harrison’s new book offers her personal journey of how she found positive energy, new self-confidence and inner strength by walking in nature around the South Downs.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06afternoon to speak to Vicki Harrison, who's come up with a very inspiring book with an
00:10absolutely brilliant title, Coat On, Coat Off, Wet Feet. It kind of says it all. Now, it's a book
00:16about how you've found positive energy, self-confidence and inner strength through
00:22walking the South Downs. What is it that just being out there and walking gives you, do you think?
00:29It gives me self-confidence that I can achieve things that I never thought was possible.
00:36Certainly after my surgery, walking seemed an impossible task and something I never thought
00:42that I would be doing what I'm doing now. If you don't mind saying, what was the surgery?
00:50What held you back? Yeah, I had prolapsed surgery and after a few complications and infections,
01:02I ended up with a hypertonic pelvis, which was stopping me from walking properly. So,
01:09it took a good nine months of physio and really sort of starting back and learning sort of
01:15five minutes at a time to walk and then 10 minutes. So, it was a real battle. Yeah. And
01:23throughout that all, it was very hard mentally to think that I could get back to where I was going
01:29before I'd have my surgery. But I just carried on setting myself a challenge that on the year
01:36of my anniversary of having the operation, I wanted to walk 10 miles. And everyone kept saying
01:41to me, it's not going to be possible. It's far too early. My mind was way ahead of where my body
01:48was. But every day, I just got up, battled and just took a few steps further and further. And
01:57I started taking myself around the back of where I live in Midhurst and walking the fields and the
02:04countryside. It sounds like the key thing is that you have a positive outlook to start from.
02:12You have to. Yeah. It's hard. You do battle with your demons. And there are days where you just
02:21really cannot put on your walking boots. But at the end of the day, I think you've got to try.
02:28Because if you don't try, you're not going to succeed anywhere. And I think once you've got
02:33something, certainly for me, when I've got a target in my head, I want to achieve that,
02:39however hard it's going to be. There's always going to be setbacks, but you just persevere.
02:45And I got a lot of inspiration and encouragement from people that started following. I started
02:50putting all my pictures up on Facebook. And a lot of people were commenting on the streets
02:56about where I'd been. And they started asking me how far I'd walked today. So it was never,
03:03hi, Vicky, how are you doing? It was all, oh, she's out walking again. Where have you been?
03:07What have you done? And so people started to follow my journey. And I think that inspired
03:12me to go further and further. And after I'd managed to achieve on the February a 10-mile
03:19outing, which I never thought was going to be possible, I was so on top of the world,
03:25because I'd actually personally achieved that, that I wanted to carry on doing that.
03:29So I kept walking and walking. And I also, I lost my NAMM back in August 22. So I took on
03:38a challenge of doing my first ever ultramarathon to raise money for dementia. And I managed to do
03:47that. It was very hard, but I did manage to succeed. Not too many blisters. And I did recover
03:53eventually after. And then I signed up a few days later for a next challenge where I was going to
04:00walk for Macmillan. And so I did all my training in between hands of walking around the South Downs,
04:08going on paths I never knew existed. And I used a walking app to discover new places.
04:16And I just kept walking in different terrains. And I think mentally, it helped me so much with
04:21what else was going on with my granddad, who was also suffering with dementia, my NAMM,
04:28we lost dementia. So it really helped me process by being out in nature, to be able to switch off.
04:37But also absorb, I think when you think you're losing something, once you get it back,
04:42you don't ever want to lose it again. So my walking changed. When I started walking,
04:49almost what I call a second time, I started to notice everything about
04:54what was beside me. You know, I would look for the snails, I'd look for the
04:58little bugs and the insects, and I'd actually take more notice of what we've got and
05:04just really appreciate. I mean, the countryside is beautiful, but I didn't realise how beautiful
05:09it was. And I've learned to get back and appreciate it.
05:15Yeah. How are you physically now? Fully recovered?
05:19Sorry? Yeah, I'm recovering from that. Obviously, now I've just got walking injuries, which are,
05:24you know, you're always going to have.
05:25They're a pleasure to have, aren't they?
05:26But they're a pleasure to have, yeah. No, it always keeps the physio busy anyway.
05:31Fantastic. And all this is distilled in the book,
05:36Coton. It is.
05:37Wet Feet. And it's available from Amazon, isn't it?
05:40It is. And also within the local area, I've got a website which has got all my
05:46pictures of all the books that I've, all the walks that I've done or I've covered in the story.
05:51But there's also a link to 20 local outlets, and a lot of them are the ones that I've mentioned
05:56in the book, because they're stops that I've made along the way in the sales downs.
06:00So if you're local to some of those areas, you can actually go and collect that.
06:04And also on Saturday, I should be at the Madhurst event, which is a local event.
06:10Trouble is, if you're writing one book, you're going to have to write another one now.
06:13I know. I've already been asked to write a second one. So my journey,
06:17I'm just taking on a thousand mile challenge now, the country walking challenge. And that will
06:23hopefully be featuring in my second book, along with hopefully more different routes,
06:29which I've not yet discovered.
06:30So from that low, low point, there's clearly now absolutely no stopping you, is there?
06:36Absolutely. You have to be, turn something, the awful traumas and sadness that we have
06:42with my grandparents, flipped it on the other way and made something positive out of it.
06:47And I think if you can do that every day, just find a little positive,
06:52then it makes the world a better place.
06:54Fantastic. Well, congratulations on the book.
06:57And congratulations on what you've achieved.
06:59Lovely to speak to you.
06:59Thank you very much.