Fall couldn't stop me bagging the Munros

A RETIRED GP has successfully completed an ambitious bid to bag all 284 Munro mountains in just three months but today told how it was almost cut short by a freak fall in torrential weather.

Dr Gerry McPartlin, 66, who worked out of Moira Park Surgery near Jock's Lodge for 21 years, overcame the injury he sustained on Scotland's second highest mountain to bag his final Munro earlier this week. He completed the challenge on Tuesday in 88 days, 11 days ahead of schedule, but it could all have ended in tears.

He said: "I must have been jinxed on Saturday because the day started with me falling out of bed.

"I've never fallen out of bed in my life but there I was, lying on the floor, having reached over to switch the alarm clock off and rolling off the bed.

"The day just went from bad to worse as I then went on to have a potentially serious fall 4,000 feet up Ben Macdui.

"I was walking through 50mph winds and heavy rain and came to a rocky patch. I stepped on a large boulder which rocked forward, and sent me tumbling into a forward somersault.

"Luckily I landed on a grassy patch and came away with little more than a sore knee.

"It was a very lucky escape."

Dr McPartlin's miracle escape may have been thanks to his old friend Monsignor David Gemmell, the administrator at St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral who died in 2008.

Mr McPartlin has dedicated his Munro bagging to The David Gemmell Living Memorial Fund, raising 22,000 for the fund to create a new L'Arche home in Edinburgh and establish a L'Arche community at Nyahururu, Kenya.

"It was a very tough challenge overall. It has occupied my life for the last three months," said Dr McPartlin.

"Over 5,000 people have bagged all the Munros but only about 20 have done it in one continuous bid, and no one that I know of in my age group.

"The record was set by 46-year-old Stephen Pyke last month, who shaved 11 days off the previous record by doing it in 39 days.

"I took people with me on around 200 of the 283 Munros so when I wasn't climbing it was a tremendous organisational effort to get everyone together for the next ones.

"I've still got a long way to go towards my target of raising 50,000 for the L'Arche fund, but I'm hoping to raise the profile of the charity with a lecture tour."

To donate to The David Gemmell Memorial Fund visit http://dglmf.wordpress.com/donations.