Every morning for the past 22 years retired Nottingham Boat Club president Keith Atkinson has woken up, had brekkie and taken to his trusty rowing machine - clocking 50 million metres to date, the equivalent of over 31,000 miles. It's a journey that would have taken him more than once around the world.
Impressive in its own right, the 81-year-old embarks on this daily routine while living with progressive multiple sclerosis, a condition which forced the grandfather to quit his beloved headteaching job in 1996 and means he is now virtually unable to walk.
"It was heart-breaking," Keith says of his early-retirement from Tuxford School, in Newark, which is now an academy. "I loved my job but not only that, I was good, I was good at it."
Diagnosed in 1974, the legendary Boat Club band booker, who famously brought Led Zeppelin, The Who, Genesis, U2, Elton John, Sex Pistols and Rod Stewart to the banks of the River Trent, says his MS really only really began to take hold in 1996 - the symptoms of which greatly impacted his hands-on management style.
He says: "My management style was management by walking around. I would get there early in the morning and I would walk round the school.
"I would talk to the caretaker, talk to the cleaning ladies, have a cup of tea with the dinner ladies and then I'd welcome the kids in from the buses. I'd walk round the school several times a day, I'd just breeze through teacher's classrooms and this, that and the other.
"It was really good but I got to the stage I was falling over and I couldn't walk round far and so I knew it was finished."
The subject still brings a tear to Keith's eye but despite retiring through ill-health he was determined to stay active and up until the end of last year he was still the president of the Nottingham Boat Club - a position he held for more than 40 years.
"I come down here [the Boat Club], I've got a converted car, it's hand controlled and automatic, so I'm still able to get around," he says. "I was always active, I was a rower and a runner so the idea of training is no big deal to me. I would never say to somebody else with MS this is what you do because it's just too much but this was my lifestyle before."
To celebrate his 50 millionth metre, Keith's Boat Club pals threw him a party.
"There was 50 all over the place and congratulations and we had food. The recreation group at the club made me a lovely cake. It was great," he says.
"It was nice at 81 to celebrate my 50th again."
MUSIC AND NIGHTLIFE
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