Colin Saunders - writer and walker More about me

According to the old rhyme, Saturday's child (and I am one) works hard for a living. And it seems to me that this held true in my case - others may disagree, having formed the view that I was permanently on holiday, or simply enjoying myself too much to be actually working.

My boyhood ambition was to join the merchant navy. For various reasons this came to nought, but I still have a great interest in anything nautical, and take every opportunity to put to sea, lake, river or canal.

So if I couldn't join the navy to see the world, I reckoned the travel trade was next best, and in 1960 joined what was then regarded as the "University of Travel", Thomas Cook and Son, at their HQ in London's Berkeley Square, qualifying as a "FInstTT" - Fellow of the Institute of Travel and Tourism. After four years there, and two with Ellis Travel in Birmingham, I returned to London to settle into a 16-year stint with the multinational hotel group, Trusthouse Forte, setting up their first central reservations office and later transferring to their travel agency, Milbanke Travel.

In 1982 I was headhunted by Waymark Holidays, a small operator of walking and cross-county skiing holidays, and worked there for seven happy years. Sadly this friendly little company no longer exists, having been absorbed into Exodus, now part of the TUI empire. I have written the story of Waymark - click here for more about this.

In 1989 I left Waymark to set up my own business, initially with walking tours called Footlines along Britain's national trails. This was in parallel with consultancy work, and in this capacity I continued to help Waymark publish their brochures for a while, as well as undertaking projects for The Ramblers, Countryside Commission (now Natural England) and London Walking Forum (now WalkLondon).

But from 1990 to 2001 the mainstay of the consultancy was a big charity walk called the Strollerthon - I'm currently writing its story - watch this space!

I had written short articles and done a fair amount of editing and proofreading, but stumbled into writing books in 1992, when the Ramblers' Association asked me to compile a manual about navigation and leadership. Having acquired the taste, next up was a book about walking in the High Tatras mountains of Slovakia and Poland. Click here for details of these and my other books.

From 1997 to 2000, in association with Croydon Council and the British Walking Federation (IVV), I organised the Croydon Festival of Walking.

In 2001 the London Walking Forum (now Walk London) asked me to write a book about its Capital Ring orbital route, and this led to being appointed as its project manager, to develop the route to a standard defined by Transport for London as one of its strategic walks.

Then in 2007, having reached the grand old age of 65, I retired! But I continue to work, usually on a voluntary basis, on projects mainly to do with walking - click here for details.