RAMBLERS’ NEW PRESIDENT BREAKS DOWN BARRIERS
COUNTRYFILE ISSUES
A mar Latif and I share a common love for walking in the Yorkshire Dales, but unlike me, he can’t see the glorious sweep of landscape all around him. Amar is blind but – as he proved in Beyond Boundaries, his debut television appearance years ago when he trekked 220 miles across Central America – he doesn’t let that stop him.
Since then he has featured in many other programmes (he was the first blind contestant on Celebrity Masterchef) and set up a travel agency for people with visual impairments. Now the man known as the Blind Adventurer has taken on another challenge, as president of Ramblers, the walking charity with around 100,000 members.
“This is such an incredible opportunity to help inspire people who think, for whatever reason, that walking is not for them,” he told me. “Having a blind guy as president communicates that rambling is for everyone.”
Glasgow-born Amir, aged 48, has an incurable eye condition; by his late teens he had lost 95% of his sight. He rambles with a sighted companion who describes the surroundings to him, but says he feels the ground and the wind, listens to the birds, smells the sheep and cattle and builds “an incredible 3D image” in his mind.
He is still settling into his new role – he was appointed on 1 April – but has already said: “The Ramblers mission to ensure equal access to nature for all is important for the health and wellbeing of people across Great Britain.”
With his passion for opening-up the countryside to everyone and his warm, forthright personality, I’m sure Amir will be more than a mere figurehead for the organisation, which has two major campaigns underway: saving lost footpaths and extending the freedom to roam.
Six hundred Ramblers volunteers are working against the clock to research 41,000 miles of footpaths that are missing from the map of England and have no legal protection.
