In his darkest depression, one idea brought Christian Lewis out of the depths - and into a new life. Finding Hildasay is a brutal and beautiful true story of depression, survival and the meaning of home. With a foreword from long-time supporter Ben Fogle.

Finding Hildasay by Christian Lewis - Pan Macmillan Finding Hildasay by Christian Lewis - Pan Macmillan

What has his journey given him so far? “I don’t need much if I’ve got this,” he says, gesturing around him. “As long as I’ve got Jet, Kate and Magnus, then I don’t need anything else to make me happy.” Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he adds: “The simpler things in life: staying young and having fun – not getting too serious – are very important. And I love the outdoors.”

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. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community. 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. Mr Lewis said the book would show people “the reality of what this walk was like from the beginning”.

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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. The Shetland Times reserves the right to decline or remove any contribution without notice or stating reason. 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. 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.' Kate gave up a career training teachers and last spring the couple welcomed their newborn son, Magnus, with Kate having walked and wild camped throughout her pregnancy. “It’s been phenomenal,” she says. “I could never have expected when I joined that we would have had a baby on the way.” Since Magnus joined them, the couple have slowed in pace, using a van to carry their things and sleep in when needed.Northern Ireland One of NI’s leading companies will ‘take some time to fully reopen’ after Newry flooding 18:26 Pan Macmillan has bagged Finding Hildasay, a memoir from veteran Chris Lewis which reflects on his time spent walking the United Kingdom coastline. Comments are moderated. Contributors must observe normal standards of decency and tolerance for the opinions of others.