A 65-year-old sports loving entrepreneur and author, who has artificial knees, is over half way through a 500-mile charity hike along a partly mountainous pilgrimage route in Northern Spain.
Bryn Thompson, from Prestbury in Cheshire, has completed around three fifths of The Camino Frances, immortalised by a 2010 film The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez and starring Martin Sheen and James Nesbitt.
Walking on metal knees following the wear and tear of having played cricket and rugby union at a high amateur level for over 40 years, Bryn is making three trips to do the hike.
He has completed two of them and will start the final 200 miles of the famous walk on October 13 in aid of Brain Tumour Research.
In January 2021, Bryn lost his former boss and friend, Andy Sawer, who died from brain cancer at the age of 59.
Together, with his then business partner Jonathan Fitchew, Andy founded assessment, placement and training company Pareto in 1995.
It grew into a £30m business based in Wilmslow, with offices in London and New York, and is now owned by Randstad, the world’s largest firm of its kind.
Bryn said:
“Andy was a force of nature, a larger than life character who loved sport, had a great sense of humour and was much loved by those who knew him.
“He helped thousands of graduates to find their first jobs in sales and many have gone on to enjoy stellar careers.
“We lost Andy far too soon but his memory lives on. We all miss him greatly.”
Bryn expects to complete his hike in a total of 35 days over the three stages. He added: “Jokingly, I am calling myself the ‘tin-kneed hiker’. Andy would have laughed at that.
“If any friends want to join me for my last stretch, they are more than welcome to get in touch.”
Brain tumours affect 55,000 people in the UK each year and kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer.
Bryn said:
“The total so far is £1,380 and the sole purpose of my making this public is to attempt to reach £5,000.
“If you are reading this please take a few minutes to give as much or as little as you can.”
Bryn, born and raised near Bakewell in Derbyshire, is not letting his “tin knees” get in the way of the sport he still plays.
He’s a talented batsman with the Cheshire Seniors cricket team who play every Tuesday in summer all over the country. He is also a golf member of The Tytherington Club.
In the rugby world, Bryn was a ball playing No 8, good enough in his day to have captained Glossop, a club situated on the edge of the Peak District, plus the Notts, Lincs and Derbyshire Combined XV.
He carried on playing this physically demanding sport until his early 50s, finishing with the Wilmslow Veterans’ team.
Bryn’s business and sporting lives (he’s fiercely competitive in both) merged to enable him to achieve a five-figure target last year when his cricket club, Prestbury, discovered badly needed new practice nets would cost in the region of £35,000.
He took charge of a close season dinner to celebrate their 150th anniversary which raised over £11,000, thought to be an unprecedented amount for a village cricket club.
Prestbury club chair Nick Taylor said:
“While everything that went into putting on the dinner was a team effort, Bryn was a wonderfully charming and expert motivator and organiser.”
Now, together with his co-author and business partner, Steve Lowndes, Bryn, a former UK Sales Leader of the Year, has just had a book published called Transformational Selling, which is receiving five-star reviews on Amazon.
The book describes in detail the methods – and in many cases the humour – which has gone into making Bryn and Steve’s business a success story in which their careers have taken them to 50 countries across every continent in the world.
To donate to Brain Tumour Research, search for Just Giving and then Bryn’s fundraiser for University of Plymouth:
If you know Bryn and would like to join him as he takes the final Spanish steps of his charity hike, email:
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