New epic walker for SSAFA starts his journey

10 August 2023

Russell Chittenden, a former Paratrooper from Aylesbury, is walking the coast of Britain for SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity. He has picked up the baton from Chris Lewis, who recently finished his famous coastline walk, and who served in the same regiment.

Since leaving the Army, Russ has spent the last ten years working in construction and has struggled to find a place in the world.

Russ said: “Nothing was going right. I was really missing my work mates from the Army. You build up such a bond and then when you leave there’s nothing like that. I’d got into the habit of drinking quite a lot with my mates when we were serving, and when I left, I didn’t have that group of people around me, so I carried on alone, which was a big mistake.”

The drinking spiralled out of control and Russ lost his driving license and couldn’t hold down a relationship. One day he was discussing his issues with his brother and joked that he just needed to ‘take a long walk and figure stuff out.’ Miraculously, the next day he spotted Chris Lewis on Instagram. Chris is another ex-Paratrooper, who had turned his life around by walking the coastline of the UK and who was about to end his epic journey.

Russ said: “That was it. I knew what I needed to do. I would pick up the fundraising for SSAFA from when Chris stopped. I decided to walk the other way around Britain so that Chris’s up-hills will be my downhills. We’ll have looked at the same coast, but from different perspectives. A bit like life, really.”

Russ was particularly intent on raising money for SSAFA as he had reached out to the charity in his darkest hour. He has set himself a fundraising target of £50,000, and is already on track to get there.

Russ said: “I have had some great support so far. I never knew our country could be so kind! Businesses have helped me out with ferry tickets, shops have given me free food, one lovely lady even brought me a hot chicken dinner when it was raining. People don’t realise what they are doing when they buy you a hot drink – they just think it’s a little thing, but it’s not. It’s huge. Such a moral boost. I’m so grateful.”

Russ is walking anticlockwise around the UK, starting from Land’s End in Cornwall. He has already got as far as Hampshire and has just completed a circuit of the Isle of Wight.