Michael Creffield
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Michael Creffield - Eskdale, The Lake District, 1957

I was on the same course that Lord Londonderry had been sent to to take him away from media attention. The rain never stopped. We were returning back to Ekofisk after bivouacking for 3 days with just a tarpauline for a tent against a brick wall. The deal was we had one set of dry clothes spare, so the wet clothes were taken off at night and hung on the wall. We then put on the dry clothes in the tent and got into our sleeping bags and cooked a meal. The next morning we took off our dry clothes put them into the bag, and then recovered the wet clothes from the wall, packed up and set off for the next camp site wall a few miles away.
The media found us as we returning at the end of the 3 days. A reporter asked me what the course was like, and I said dont talk to me, so he asked my buddy.
On Sunday the newspapers had a full middle page with a picture of us walking back, with a headline, The toughest course for young men today, I never forgot it, at the end of that month I was fitter than I had ever been before or since.