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Man celebrates 60th consecutive Christmas Day walk

John Devine/BBC Colin Bedford, 88, wearing a green wax jacket overcoat, with a brown scarf underneath he has a tartan fedora hat and long grey whiskery sideburns. He is standing in his back garden with various old road signs behind him. He is holding a piece of tree branch about 1m (3ft) long with white notches cut into it, which represent every year he has done the walk.John Devine/BBC
A notch for every year a walk is completed, Colin Bedford took his 60th consecutive walk on Christmas Day

A man is celebrating taking his 60th traditional five-mile Christmas Day walk which he started in 1965.

Colin Bedford, 88, from March, Cambridgeshire, first went on the journey on Christmas Day 59 years ago and has repeated the excursion every year since.

Part of his ritual is to carve the current date into the bark of the same tree where he played as a child, which marks the end of his festive stroll.

In 1965 Mr Bedford collected a thick branch that had fallen from the tree, which he continues to use as a walking aid, which too has had a notch added for every year.

Colin Bedford Colin Bedford, 88, wearing a green wax jacket overcoat, he has a tartan fedora hat and long grey whiskery sideburns, and has dark gloves, he is using a hammer and chisel to carve the year into the thick branch of an ash tree. Farmland is beyond him, a ploughed brown field with some trees in the distance, a person is watching him work to the right.Colin Bedford
Every Christmas Day since 1965 Mr Bedford takes a chisel and hammer to carve the particular year into the tree

"I suppose it became a bit of an obsession," said Mr Bedford.

"In 1965, my wife and I, with our one-year-old daughter had gone for Christmas Day lunch with my parents, who still lived in the house where I grew up.

"When I was a small child me and my friends had a secret den in an area of Fenland called Hook Drive near Wimblington, we used to have such fantastic fun down there, it was a magical place," said Mr Bedford.

The den included four mature ash trees.

Colin Bedford A group of 21 people and a dog gather outside a house on Upwell Road in March where Mr Bedford lived as a child, this picture marks the 50th walk undertaken on Christmas Day 2015.Colin Bedford
In 2014, to mark the 50th walk, Mr Bedford was accompanied by friends and family

Mr Bedford went on to explain that after their Christmas Day meal the weather in 1965 was particularly mild.

On the spur of the moment he decided to go for a "trip down memory lane".

"I wanted to show my little daughter some of my old haunts, so headed for our beloved secret den.

"When we reached the ash trees I got my pen knife out and carved my initials and the year into the trunk of the end tree.

"The whole thing brought back such vivid happy memories, I thought that I'd like to do it every year."

Colin Bedford Colin Bedford, 88, wearing a green wax jacket overcoat, he has a tartan fedora hat and long grey whiskery sideburns, and has light coloured gloves, he is flanked by his grand-daughters and an older lady who has a red Santa hat, that is his daughter, who went on the very first walk, aged one. In the background are tree branches and farmland.Colin Bedford
Since Mr Bedford's wife Margaret passed away other family members have gone with him on his festive walk

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