‘Snatching a Wee Bit of it is Magic’

Publish Date: Wednesday July 31, 2024

When my colleagues and I got chatting to a walker on the Fife Coastal Path at Dysart, we were intrigued. Here was a man, an amputee, who told us he’d walked the entire path on crutches.

Dr Bob Grant explained that a childhood diagnosis of a tumour in his thigh bone, and ongoing complications as an adult, had resulted in the full amputation of his leg in 2002.

Nine months later he walked 108 miles around the coastal path with his team of family and friends to raise £16,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Inspiring

His inspiring story was new to us, as it was well before our time at Fife Coast and Countryside Trust.

Later, my research found Bob’s website, where his full story is laid out. Suffice to say that his adolescent experiences of medical interventions – many wonderful, some traumatic – led to him pursuing a career as a GP and becoming a national authority in cancer service development. He was a hugely influential professional who became chair of the Scottish Cancer Group, which pushed for better cancer services.

I met Bob for a longer chat in the Harbourmaster’s House Café, where he and wife Joan were entertaining their two grandchildren and dog Amber.

I learned what a huge part the Fife Coastal Path has played in his life, in his sense of achievement and in his happiness. He explained that you don’t need to walk miles and miles to experience its qualities.

Astonishing

“Even snatching a wee bit of it is magic,” says Bob, his eyes lighting up. “The landscape is astonishing. Leven Beach is astonishing. I went there just yesterday, in the sunshine! It was like I’d never seen it like that before. The reflections on the water and sand, the sun shining.

“You could not go anywhere else and get a better view, in my opinion.”

Originally from Aberdeenshire, Bob worked in Glasgow and Dumfriesshire. He spent two years doing clinical oncology and research in Cambridge and then returned to Scotland, to general practice in Markinch.

Bob says: “We longed for the hills and the sea.” He and Joan, who live in Glenrothes, immediately started exploring the area on foot.

I asked him what the Fife Coastal Path means to him. He says: “It is everything. To discover it for the first time…when we realised that the small bit of the path we regularly walked on was something much bigger, then it was my ambition to discover it fully.”

Bob, Joan and their friends and family have included the coastal path on several long-distance charity walks. These walks have been planned around milestones on Bob’s personal journey, such as Maggie’s Centres in Dundee, Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy.

Connections

“Amazing things happen on these walks,” says Bob. “The best thing is the people you bring along with you on the route. We tell stories. We make connections, rediscover old friends and make new friends.”

Unfortunately, Bob has never found success with an artificial limb and he’s now finding his walking range is diminishing.

“There’s a sense of frustration. I’m desperate to explore the coastal path again and see how it’s changed.

“I worry about those changes. Erosion is a massive issue. I don’t think it’s logical to try to keep maintaining paths, or to build artificial paths, where nature is taking its course.

“We’ve got to deal with what’s inevitable. And we need to be realistic and create paths that can remain for a sensible duration of time.”

Read Bob’s full story.

By Marjory Wood, FCCT Communications Officer