EIGHT prison officers decided to take their walking club a step further by climbing three mountains in three days.

The Bullingdon Prison officers hope to have raised £2,000 for ex-forces charity Combat Stress after completing the Three Peaks challenge.

In total the group climbed 3,407 metres — Snowdon, in Wales (1085m), Scafell Pike, England, (978m), and Ben Nevis, in Scotland, (1344m).

Organiser Graham Howarth, 50, said: “The group of us from Bullingdon go walking regularly and decided to do something more.

“The average walk up Snowdon and Scarfell was three to four hours and driving was another three to four hours.

“The drive to Scotland was five hours on top of a five hour walk.

“It was harder than we thought, but everyone enjoyed it.

”We wanted to thank the Prison Service and Centre who gave £200 and Pullen Transport, in Burton-on-the-Water which allowed us the use of a mini bus.”

Walkers decided to help Combat Stress because many of them have family connections in the armed services.

The team included Graham Howarth, his daughter Kate, and colleagues Andrew Bray, Mark Reed, Graham Gardner, Gav Gasson and Stef Smith.

  • A team of six firefighters from Kidlington are planning to climb the UK’s three highest peaks next month.

Gary Crone and fellow firefighters from the village station will climb Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in the Lake District and Snowdonia in North Wales.

They launched their fundraising efforts with a charity car wash at the station in Sterling Road last Saturday.