Richard is one half of the leadership of the Big 5 Kayak Challenge. Its is amazing how an idea can develop, from a nagging desire to paddle the Thames from source to sea combined with the infamous DW (Devizes to Westminster) Race to a fully blown serious expedition. Like most great endeavours, the thing is much bigger than one individual and with a great team in place the Big 5 is no exception. That classic phase “Why Not?!!” has been the standard response to Richard’s invitation to join the mad cap dream.

Richard is also the driving force and founder behind majorsporty,com, a sports and leisure community and can often be found outdoors. He will be either hanging halfway up a rock face, walking in the hills and mountains, on a bike or canoeing in the middle of winter. Well he does claim to be Scottish! In fact if you stop him for five minutes he will be able to relate (at some length) a story about most sports and his attempts at them. Richard is something of a Rugby gypsy and has played Rugby around the world in places as wide and varied as Bedford, Sweden, New Zealand and various places in the USA. An unfortunate dislocation of his knee last year has finally forced him to hang up(not chuck out!!) his boots.

He has taken part in numerous charitable sporting events including London to Paris cycle rally twice, Bedford 100 mile canoe marathon 3 times and competes with The Star Rafters on the rafting circuit (no we are not doing the 100 mile, 3 day Wye Valley raft race again!!). More recently Richard has organised various charity events including canoeing the 90 miles of the Caledonian Canal and canoeing 100 miles from Bedford to Kings Lynn. All of which raised considerable funds for charities including WaterAid, NSPCC and The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust. Not playing rugby has enabled him to focus back on kayaking and canoeing and he has finally got his first instructor qualification (25 years is not such a long time!). He is also loving the sport of canoe polo and can’t understand why it is not an Olympic Sport.

He does claim to have done some studying in his time but primarily selected his colleges on location to allow kayak surfing and commercial diving (not at the same time!!). He is chuffed to bits that this pub talk type idea of the Big 5 is now reality and importantly will raise some money and awareness for some great causes.