It’s nice to be nice. Meet Brian Oor Kiltwalk Gent

I was in the Kiltwalk Office roughly two weeks before the Speyside event and doing what I do, chatting away to the team, drinking coffee and enjoying the general ambiance.

I soon realised, based on their one word answers, that there was real work to do, with bus numbers to confirm, t-shirts to chase, charities to meet up with and never ending lists to get through and I was getting in the way. So I sloped back to the ‘visitors’ desk and tried to leave them alone, after all they had Kiltwalks to organise.

As I sat there, observing, I noticed one of the team was having a “how am I going to get all this done" moment and was becoming stressed about it all, when horrors of horrors, their Kiltwalk Batphone rang.

I watched out of interest, OK nosiness as they took a deep breath and answered the call, with their ‘Kiltwalk’ voice on. The caller was phoning with a query, and I watched as they frantically wrote down a name and details and confirmed everything would be OK. The frown that had answered the phone had melted away as they continued to chat away with the caller for several more minutes before the call ended and they sat back in their chair with a huge contented, happy smile and all of a sudden, everything on their to-do list seemed possible.

That caller was Brian Fleming, who is pictured above (right) along with his son Gordon and if Brian reads this, he’s finding out for the first time that he genuinely "made someone’s day".

Brian, 68, enjoys good health and has bags of energy and decided many years ago it would be right to share some of his good fortune. Therefore for several years he’s been a volunteer ambassador for Chilli Children as he had always wanted to help Children's Charities.

Brian is an avid Scotland fan and proud supporter of one of our Partner Charities, TACC and it was through TACC he found himself training for his first Hampden Kiltwalk in 2011. This was a shock to not only him, but his family as he would normally drive to the paper shop, literally two streets away!! However, with Scottish Children’s Charities benefiting from The Kiltwalk, the decision to take part was made and training became a bit of an obsession.

April 2011 came and went and Brian walked his first and what he vowed would be his last Kiltwalk as crossed the line. What Brian didn’t know was he had a problem ahead of him as The Kiltwalk experience had a profound effect on him.

As we said earlier, when it comes to fund raising for Children’s Charities, Brian is dedicated to the task and he’d caught the “Kiltwalk Bug”, which meant by the time September 2011 arrived, he was “champing at the bit” to sign up for 2012, where he once again took part in the Hampden event.

This year, he decided it was time for a change of scenery, so skipped the Hampden event and signed up for Speyside, which he clearly states has been his toughest Kiltwalk yet, a view shared by many.

However as tough as it was, he thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the walk as he walked the 26 miles with his son, Gordon, where they enjoyed a great Father and Son experience. There were times they both found the going tough, however just when it seemed like they couldn’t go on, up popped another Charity pit stop and Brian says the pit stops just keep getting better and better with each year and each event and can’t praise the volunteers and charities who run them enough.

Brian is such a Kiltwalk enthusiast other family members clearly believe they’re missing out, or are at least curious to find out what all the Kiltwalk fuss is about, so are making noises about signing up for next year. Why? Well they remember the Brian who jumped in his car for that paper and here he is, three Kiltwalks later, contemplating doing Glasgow and Speyside in 2014 at the sprightly age of 69, so it must be some event. He’s not holding his breath with regards to the rest of the Fleming Clan.

So that’s Brian story, or as he’s now known by some “one of the nicest men in the world”.

You see during ‘that’ phone call, Brian had talked with enthusiasm about life, about The Kiltwalk and about the great work he thought the Kiltwalk Team were doing, and thanked them for it.

Unknowingly Brian, the gentle man, with the kind words had calmed "Zoey" down and made her feel great. He finished by thanking her for sorting out his problem in such an efficient manner, but what he didn’t realise was that Zoey really wanted to thank him for cheering her up and reminding her that all the hard work and effort was worth it for Oor Kiltwalkers and Oor Bairns.

Brian, you're Oor Kiltwalk Gentleman, see you next year.