The best way to explain the meaningfulness of this challenge is to tell you a story, a true story with lots of angles so bear with me, it is interesting I promise.

Some of my earliest memories are of being tied to rocks with my little brother whilst my dad set up the next climb.
Thinking about it now it seems reckless and dangerous, but my father's commitment to the extreme embedded a lot of strength in me.

By the time I was big enough to wear ski boots I was pointing down the hill at Rossendale ski slope and not long after that we were up in Scotland battling actual snow! (we got rescued, do you
remember that white out dad? Thanks)

I thought I was Invincible for a
while, until SMASH.

On 23 of December 2011 I had a car
accident on the motorway and broke both of my legs. My right femur was snapped, my left kneecap was fractured as well as my fibula and there was a lot of damage to the ligaments of my left leg. Suffice it to say my life came to a bit of a full stop and when that happens there is a lot of time to think.

With a year to wait to have my left ACL and posterolateral corner repair (seriously, put that into YouTube, it’s amazing what surgeons can do) I got pretty scared about how I was going to recover, which leads me to thinking about the hero in this story, my Dad.

So this is where its starts to get a
little coincidental, or weird? Your choice…

At a very similar age that I had my
accident, my Dad had an accident of his own. He had a climbing accident leaving him with a smashed patella (that’s the kneecap if you haven’t already being googling the medical terms.) He was in a coma for 4 weeks and he will hate me for saying this but the first words out of his mouth to his nearest and dearest
were

“What are you doing here? Fuck off!”

I found this hilarious when I eventually found out years later, given that my father is an extremely well-spoken individual who would absolutely not tolerate foul language. At all.

After what I’ve already mentioned about his somewhat determined behaviour it shouldn’t be a surprise to let you know that prior to this incident my Dad was in the military but he was honourably
discharged  because in his own words

 “My eye accident in the army was a high velocity blunt trauma which caused central vision loss in the left eye.”

This did little to stop him from pursuing his love of painting and my dad’s struggle with his vision is a story best told himself but there is some information here:

https://preservemacforte.com/uk-man-riding-bike-to-london-to-raise-money-for-macular-degeneration-research/

Oh, and there’s also an incident in Kenya involving a motorcycle which is another story in itself – at this point I feel like we’ve got to points scoring on broken bones 

(I win, I think)

So I think it’s time I cut to the chase and say that last year I heard from my dad that he had prostate cancer which is incurable and had spread to his bones.

This information did not sit very well with me at all, especially as my own mental health hasn’t been tip top for various reasons. Following hearing this news I began to speak to him on the phone more and more, and during one of these conversations I proposed the idea of summiting Ben Nevis on the 10 year anniversary of my own car crash, which was met with the response that that would definitely
definitely be a bad idea. Add also the fact that naturally my dad has climbed Ben Nevis already (On his day off whilst cycling from John o Groats to Lands end) so finally we get to the subject of the Munro’s.

A Munro is a mountain peak above 3000 feet in Scotland. There are lots of them, hundreds in fact… and lots of enthusiasts who take on the challenge of completing them all. My dad fancied himself as one of those enthusiasts but alas time and life gets in the way.

So this is why we want to appreciate time and life, in the eccentric style of the Redfords, and do something positive in support of the NHS. Because without their care neither of us would have had a knee between us!

Our aim is to summit as many Munro’s as possible in a weekend, luckily there are some that are not so far apart according to my Dad who is planning our route. Even doing one will be an achievement for me but I imagine the reality will be Dad gliding up the mountain whilst I crawl behind, sweating and wanting to go home….

And that just about sums it up – talking about sums, how many times did I use the word “accident” whilst writing this? Do you think being accident prone is genetic? And the final sum that boggled my mind a little is that my Dad is 68 years old (with a terminal illness, poor eyesight and a messed up knee – STILL WANTING
TO CLIMB MOUNTAINS!) and I am 34.

If your mental arithmetic is poor I will point out that 34x2=68 so I am now the same age as my dad was when I was born! This definitely means that fate is on our side and we will make it up and down the mountains to show that the mind and body can be healed, if we try.

And without the NHS we would not have the opportunity to try at all. I dread to think how much we have collectively cost in MRI scans, surgery, radiotherapy and the time of the doctors and nurses who care about their patients.

So
please wish us luck, but most importantly share and donate to this cause so youcan help us put back towards what they did to make us stronger!