AT midnight on March 24, 1974, 1,500 people set off on a 30-mile walk around Huddersfield.

It was, apparently, the fifth time volunteers had embarked on this kind of blistering effort.

Each year a different cause was espoused.

The first, as far as we know, was in 1967 and was to raise money for Beechwood Homes.

In 1974, under the encouragement of the then Kirklees Mayor, Clr John Mernagh, the walkers were sponsored to raise cash for a special care ambulance for the people of Huddersfield and district.

Christine Battye of Newsome was based at the Huddersfield Guide Hall in Old Leeds Road.

"Our job was to keep track of where everyone was," she said. "This was before the days of computers, and a fleet of vans was used to ferry information from the check-in points to the headquarters, where we ticked names off against a master list.

"It worked really well," she said. "We pretty much knew exactly where everyone was right through the night."

It was probably easier for the marshalls than the walkers who, it's said, were collecting blisters and aching limbs as the marshall were collecting names and stages.

But it was still a marathon for the people like Christine, who turned up at the HQ at 9pm and didn't go home until 10am the next morning.

"I'd love to know if anybody remembers this walk," said Christine. "They ought to do - some of them won't be much older than 37."

About 800 of the 1,500 walkers finished the walk. The effort raised more than £10,000.

The ambulance was to be bought and handed over to the North Regional Hospital Board, though it was to operate from the ambulance station at Marsh.