Original subtitles

Lots of things happen when you walk.

Sometimes you go beyond it.

If you're walking and you feel tired, you must not stop.

So many people stop and they find them dead next morning.

They just can't stand it any more and they want to give

the body a rest and they go to sleep and they perish.

And I always make sure, no matter how knackered and tired,

I will not stop.

You must never, ever stop.

And that's always in my mind.

Don't stop.

Keep going.

See if it rings a bell with you.

Smell it.

Is it bog myrtle? Yeah. Yeah.

KEN CHUCKLES

How many Miles do you reckon we just walked? 27 each way.

54 miles just to post a letter!

Aye, well, the sun's shining.

For now, anyway.

Phew.

Loch Treig. It's known as the Lonely Loch.

There is no road here.

But they used to live here before they built the dam

and all their ruins are down there.

The score now is one, and that's me.

30 and...

..11.

Right, go and sit over there, where you was, before that train comes.

Hang on. Yeah. Perfectus.

Do it now, quick, while the light is on.

I've been living here for almost 40 years now.

Thousands and thousands of pictures, I've taken, over the years.

I don't know the names of these roses.

I'm going to build an archway out of them but it takes time.

I don't know who this lady is but she must have been canned up.

Oh, dear. Definitely!

You look younger there, don't you?

Ken, that was, like, seven years ago.

I can't believe you took a picture of me the very first time I visited,

yet it took you seven years to let me start filming you.

KEN LAUGHS

You look through it and you press the button and you go like that.

You can't take action films with this.

If you want to live an independent life,

what you'll have to do is learn how to fish.

Now put the reading on the camera.

60 and 16.

Ready to take.

Mm. Bloomin' 'eck.

There's a good one.

There's a good peanut.

This is what they look like, but this is just one of them.

It's in its younger age.

So all this stuff keeps you going all year round? Everything.

It's got to be what I can eat.

This is where you store all your food?

Yeah, this is... When I get 'em, they're green.

When I get them. Cos the birds eat them.

I think if you love the land, it sort of loves you back.

It loves you back in all the things it produces for you.

Taste that one.

Did you like it? No.

KEN LAUGHS

Why... Why should I try it?

Well, you might like it.

I think you're having me on.

Look at this.

The wilderness, and he's the only man there.

When did you come across that book?

Probably 40 years ago.

So, is that what you did with yous? Yeah.

Well, I didn't dry mine out.

It never dries out in Britain, especially Scotland.

What beautiful work he did. Far better than me.

Was it this book that helped you make your cabin?

Yeah. I built... I built one out of little sticks.

What do you mean?

Just to see how to do it.

It's a nice life.

Everybody wishes they could do it but nobody ever does.

30th... I've got the dates right.

My box of memories.

'61. I was still at school then.

I must have had a boring life.

"April 20th, 1963.

"Today I went for a walk." KEN CHUCKLES

My first wage - three pound, 15 shilling.

I started work when I were 15 years old.

Building fire station, you see?

Foreman.

I never got a high wage. Nothing above £12.

In all them years.

Year after year after year.

Well, I saved up a lot of money.

"24th of the tenth, 1974."

"Taken into hospital from October 15th with a brain haemorrhage.

"Off work until July 31st, 1975."

After I got beat up on t' street.

I was... In age, I was about...

..26 then, and I were discoing it at Ripley.

Five mile from home.

At it till two o'clock in t' morning.

So, time to go home, they boot you out.

So I'm walking up Church Street, past the church,

and there was about eight of 'em.

And they, erm...

They come charging at me and kicked my head in,

shoved me through a baker... baker's window.

Police come roaring up.

They took us all away...

..and was in bad shape.

And for three days I lay in bed.

And eventually, my head...

You know, it's like you can hardly ever imagine.

It was like it was going to explode.

And, erm, I knew that something was definitely wrong.

I lost consciousness.

And, erm...

How many days?

It was from the f... Erm...

The fourth...

The fourth of October

until the 27th of October, I was unconscious.

So, where is it? Just keep feeling.

Lower. Oh!

How many holes are there? Five.

Oh yeah.

Wow.

It certainly gives you a different view of life, I can tell you.

They said I would never recover.

They said I would never speak again.

They said I would never write again.

They said I would never walk again.

But I did.

And that's when I decided to never live on anyone's terms but my own.

I'd gone out of British Columbia and I'd gone into the Yukon.

It was this old strip of road.

I thought to myself, if I left this long strip

and walked into the forest, I wonder how long I'd last.

I just walked off the highway.

To go into nowhere.

If you go somewhere that isn't planned, that becomes an adventure.

22,000 mile in all.

And that's how it began.

So, when I leave here, when will you next see someone?

Erm...

..it could be the next day,

could be a fortnight.

I don't really know.

You're up. How long have you been up?

Oh, wait. Just, like, five minutes, really.

Something for you to film.

It's so pretty.

You won't notice it at the moment, but I was just...

..washing blood away.

What happened? I tripped.

When? Last night?

Yeah. Look. Oh!

KEN CHUCKLES

No.

When was that? Just... Just after you went.

I went, erm...

Erm...

I was coming towards the door to go out for a pee

and I tripped over something.

I don't know what I hit my bloomin' head on. Oh, no.

Did you get up straight away?

Did I what? Did you... You weren't knocked out or anything? No. No.

I just got up and then I thought, well, I'll go to bed now, then.

Oh, no. You should have come and got me.

Yeah, you were still awake. I did look across and I could see a light.

It were just after you left.

Oh, no. That's all... Nowt like an injury, eh?

That's all the booze, eh? Eh?

That's all the booze.

No, there was something on t' floor. I don't...

Cos I didn't drink much.

I tripped.

Isn't it nice to have an accident?

What are you filming?

Well, I was filming the wood and now I'm filming you.

LIZZIE LAUGHS

I'll come down in a minute.

I'm going inside. It's a bit cool here. Mm.

If you've got another sack, I can carry some back as well.

No, that's it. This will be enough for today.

Because I'm sure you wouldn't be able to do this.

Are you filming? Yeah.

Whoa.

Could you do that?

Let's go.

WIND HOWLS

RADIO: And on Saturday, clearly concern for some severe gale force

damaging winds, but also another very significant...

RADIO: Bearing down on Scotland, with the Met Office having issued

a red weather warning. This is as serious as...

You can leave me alone to...

..do my writing now.

HELICOPTER ROTORS WHIR

MACHINE BEEPS

Your brain, it swells and shrinks

and swells and shrinks and swells and shrinks

with every heartbeat of your body.

You'll look at the clock and it'll say a time

and you'll think you've gone through a day and look at it again

and only five minutes have passed.

It's terrible.

This is the trial run to see how your balance and everything is.

Oops. I'm staggering.

We just want to make sure that everything that you need to do,

day-to-day, you're going to be safe to do. I am wobbling?

KEN EXCLAIMS

This is why we've done this, you know, just to see...

To see what happens? Yeah, it's a strange feeling, this is.

What I'm wondering is, you see when you're walking? When you're carrying

a big, heavy bag, do you think that'll throw you off a wee it?

But it might be to begin with, if you fill it halfway

and if Lizzie's with you, just to make sure.

Just don't go all guns blazing straight away.

So you're here because the doctor said, go and sort your life out,

basically, are you? More or less.

They've been trying for a long while to get me to come into town

and this last do I had, that was the first thing they said.

"We reckon you ought to go and live in civilisation." And I says,

"Well, I don't want to go into a council house

"or anything like that."

How much gas do you pay? How much coal do you pay?

What kind of facilities does the log cabin have?

I mean, does it have electricity? No. Have any running water?

And there's obviously no gas heating of any sort? No, nothing like that.

And how is the heating arranged, then?

Logs. It gets the place really warm.

The council might consider that a home,

but I would have to look into the detail of that

to see whether that would constitute a reasonable home to live in.

I suspect not, in which case you could make a claim for homelessness.

I don't want to make a claim at the moment.

No, but you're thinking... What? Are we talking months

or years down the line? What kind of timescale?

No idea. No idea at this stage? If I go ill again, then it'll be quick.

But if I don't go ill, I'll be there a long while.

Yeah, it's a good life, I think. Yeah?

Do you think the quality of life is far better living in the lodge?

Is it a very happy, comfortable life for you? Yeah.

If you moved into a flat here in Fort William,

you would have carers and nurses, you'd have money coming in.

But the quality of life? That would be a big question mark over that.

I'm going to try everything to stop and I hope I live to 102

but if I have another one... Yeah. ..then it'll be different then.

Mentally, you're better in the lodge,

physically, you're better in Fort William. Yeah.

Big, big decision. That's the dilemma, yeah.

We've got time to kill, so what do we do?

It contains that? Yes.

INDISTINCT Sure.

BIRDS SING

It's not a good thing.

The moment you start to move around, you get two different visions.

I'll tell you, it's really weird.

Why don't you go back to the hospital?

They know about it.

They can't do anything.

Maybe the optician guy can.

No, this is something on the brain. This is a blood clot.

Hoping that it'll dissolve.

It's extremely pretty.

What? What I'm seeing.

At least it's not ugly.

Can you describe it?

Colourful zigzags...

..all over, like waves.

And they're every colour you can think of.

Very pretty.

I've not been down here for a long while.

Can't see it.

Which way does it go? Well, it must be other way.

I can't see which way it's supposed to go.

Which way is it spinning? It's my eyesight.

So...

It must be that way.

It might just not be our day. It seems so.

Ooh.

Bloomin' 'eck, my eyes.

I never knew I'd be like this.

Just cos of a bloody stroke.

"7th of May, 1979.

"Dear Mum and Dad,

"I told you I was going in search of a wilderness -

"the most wild I could imagine, and I think I've found it.

"Oh, if only I could convey to you

"what this wilderness is really like.

"I miss you both but this wilderness beckons me.

"Two years I've roamed.

"I just kept walking.

"It was the ocean that stopped me.

"But next month I depart for home.

"I'm like one of these many clusters of perched young swallows

"up on pylon lines,

"undecided, but know the magnetic pole to home is there.

"One day they are there and the next day they are gone.

"I hope you'll receive this letter in time to receive me

"from Heathrow Airport."

They had died.

No home to go back to.

That hit me real bad, that did.

After that happened and I learnt, it took a long while to hit me.

I felt nothing.

Mm.

By now, I'd walked the British Isles and I was coming up

from Rannoch, actually.

And walking up the line, and I started, erm...

..to remember them, and I started to cry.

Cried all the way while walking.

I thought, where's the most isolated place in Britain?

So I went round...

..and followed the whole lot - every bay, every Ben

where there wasn't a house built.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of nothingness.

Looked across the loch...

..saw this woodland.

That's the place.

This place was the place that you finally grieved?

Yeah.

Cried everything out and went back to normal.

And that's when you stopped walking?

Yeah, I suppose so.

I write lots of letters.

When I write a letter, I put down who I've wrote to.

Friends, my ex gaffer...

A lady that lived at Teslin. It's in the Yukon territory.

Allan J. MacLeod. He's the head stalker.

He's the one that looks after the hills around here.

Since I had the stroke,

Allan has been bringing me food every few weeks.

People these days have been very good to me.

Now I've got a small pension that comes through once a month.

Hello?

How are you doing for food? Are you needing food, yeah?

I've got... I've got food,

but I'm down to the last dwindling, as you might say. Aye.

There's two radios, Ken. Oh, right.

I'll certainly miss the radios.

One's batteries and one's...

..erm, wind up and solar power. How much do I owe you for them?

Erm, £30 for the two of them. So I'll give you an extra 30.

Well, that's for the food. Thanks.

When I collapsed last time with that stroke...

..he'd delivered this just two hours previous.

If I hadn't had that, I don't think I'd have been here now.

So what is it for?

The OK signal, to say I'm all right.

On.

O...K.

Now, that's where it'll remain for the next 15 minutes

and the signal will go through. And it's like it's satellite?

Eh? Is it a G...satellite? Yeah.

And you have to do that every week.

Yeah, just to let them know I'm all right.

And what about relationships? Romantic relationships.

Have you ever been in love?

Yeah, there was only really one girl that I really liked.

All I wanted to do was see the world.

And I can remember her up against the window,

washing the window,

and she kept waddling her arse about,

and there... I was thinking, "What is she up to?"

And then she said, erm, "Ken...

"..will you marry me?"

And that's when I told her I was going abroad

but if she still thought the same when I come back,

then I probably would have married her.

Never went back.

You never went back?

No. Well, nowhere to go to anyway.

SQUAWKING

It's quite a good beam, isn't it?

Look, it's lighting the roses up.

Do you see them?

Oh, yeah.

I think that's a beautiful rose, isn't it?

Yeah. That's the one I'm taking care of.

I've put all these shells below.

And then what you're supposed to do is, erm...

..talk to it.

It does have an effect on them because plants can feel.

No, I can't find it.

That is brand-new and I didn't buy it.

Allan brought it down.

Did he? Yeah.

When did he bring it?

On Friday, when he brought all the shopping as well.

Right. That's my memory that's suddenly gone strange.

I can't recall seeing that, actually.

Hm? I can't recall seeing this before, in flower.

That's the one you showed me last night.

You love that, don't you, Rose?

The love it, actually. They have a feeling.

Every plant has a feeling.

Do you think it helps them grow? Yeah, it does.

Yeah, you speak to them kindly.

Hm.

You know, who's a beautiful, beautiful little flower, then, eh?

THEY CHUCKLE

Right, no, erm, mention of you on here at all.

So I'd...skipped a day...

..which was strange.

And I'd become one day behind with every entry I put down.

Mm.

Doctors have told me about what's happened to my mind.

It's since...I had that stroke.

And they call it the cloud or something like that.

But it has damaged my memory, that stroke did.

That's the nuisance of it.

You now live in a cloud world.

It's nice to have the truth wrote down.

I started in 1952.

I wrote it in pencil.

What year were that?

Oh, just look up in your diary.

And, you know, all your history is behind you.

And you start to look through it and you read a little bit

and automatically it comes straight to you.

Oh, yeah, I remember that day,

and it's not long before you can get yourself back into square one again.

The first pictures that I ever took.

Yeah, I first started taking pictures when I was about eight

and that was with a box camera.

And I remember my first picture I ever took

was a load of crows flying above me.

Why can't I find my slides?

That's another thing.

Photos are good for your memory.

When I had that haemorrhage, I lost a lot of memory.

When I was in hospital, my dad brought photos

to bring back my memory.

Don't you think you'd be so much more comfortable

if you lived in a town?

No.

What would I do? Sit in a pub drinking beer?

But do you think if you had another accident again, like in winter,

you'd think about going?

Yeah, I reckon something is going to happen to me one day.

We weren't put on Earth forever...

..so something's got to happen.

KEN EXCLAIMS

Do you ever worry about it? No.

Not really.

It's already happened to me once.

At least you've got more people around now. Yeah.

More visitors.

When it hit me, the stroke...

..a terrible feeling.

But once I'd said that prayer and hit the floor,

an incredible calmness came about.

Really, really strange.

I didn't feel worried about anything.

Really strange.

Nobody was there, but you felt really relaxed.

Erm...

..just lying there in the snow.

No worry, no fear, no nothing.

And do you think that's because you prayed?

I don't know.

It certainly calmed me down, that's for sure.

Not much power on it at the moment.

Is that one bag-full?

Yeah.

We need, erm... One, two...

Ah.

I don't know if I'll get this one up.

Ooh, it's a heavy sod!

This one I'll have a job to get up.

KEN GROANS

Makes you grunt summat when you start lifting these bloomin' things!

LIZZIE CHUCKLES

Are you coming back for your camera? Yeah, I'll have to.

Watch you don't slip. There's ice under this snow.

Are you happy first or shall I go first?

Eh? Are you happy in the front? Yeah.

Would you be able to carry with one hand?

Your camera.

Erm...

I could try.

As long as you don't slip, eh?

Ah.

KEN LAUGHS

"Ooh, argh, has to come to cut my hair."

KEN LAUGHS

Oh, dear.

You can tuck this in at my neck.

What colour was you hair when you were younger?

Blonde. I was a blonde until I was 16. Really? Yeah.

And then what?

It went black.

"Dear Reverend Gerry Dillon...

"..I've been in contact with you before, I think.

"My memory isn't good.

"I was just trying my hardest to remember the word 'consecrate'.

"Is that the word?

"You'll bless the ground where I'd like to be buried,

"a certain distance from flowing burns.

"Hope same date can be sorted out in this line and I'll pay you well.

"Ken."

There is life after death. I believe it strong.

KNOCKING

LAUGHTER

Come on in. Thank you.

Oh, wow.

Why did you place your cabin here?

I would never have found it in a million years.

Oh, yeah.

At least I've got a view. Stunning.

Are you tired? I am.

KEN LAUGHS

So, we always pray in the name of God,

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prevent us, oh, Lord, in all our doings

with Thy most gracious favour

and further us with Thy continual help,

that in all our works, begun, continued and ended in The,

we may glorify Thy holy name,

and finally, by Thy mercy, obtain everlasting life

and the blessing of God Almighty,

the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...

..be among You and remain with You always.

Amen.

Amen. It is done.

It is set apart.

Warm water to dissolve the sugar and sterilise it.

Next, the yeast.

When I die,

instead of everybody moaning and sad,

I want everybody to be merry.

Getting pissed up all on my wine.

Who are you going to invite?

Anybody can come that I know.

And they'll know me, so they'll come.

How much do you think you've got there in total, gallon wise?

Eight, 16...

..32. There's 32 gallons visible

and, erm, another eight there.

That's 40 up to now. 40 gallon.

And I've got about 70 altogether.

If you imagine your old age,

what's, like, all the different options?

Hmm.

A big choice.

I'll stop here till my final days come.

Definitely.

I have had lots of incidents

and I seem to have survived them all.

I know one thing for sure, no matter what,

I am bound to go ill again sometime.

Something will happen to me that will take me away one day,

as it does for everybody else.

But I'm hoping that I'll get to 102.

Cwoar!

If you ever see something so beautiful

that you can't take it off your mind,

then you want to tell other people.

Some of us are painters, so we show it with our hands.

Some of us can write.

Some of us can take photos

to remember such beauties of this Earth.

But if unable to do so,

then you'll remember in your minds forever.

That's what I intend to do.

Remember it forever.