A PICTURE speaks a thousand words and for one man it is plain to see the dedication and effort he has put in to helping raise money for a mental health charity.

A police officer for Cumbria Constabulary, he has raised more than £5,500 in support of the Campaign Against Living Miserably.

Attempting to reach 152 summits is enough for most people to accomplish in a lifetime, let alone a week.

But, feeling passionate about men’s mental health, police officer Ross Jenkin wanted to really challenge himself and try to raise £15,000 for charity.

Suffering from mental health problems, Ross understands the difficulty faced by men and has spent years finding ways to tackle his own demons.

Setting off on the challenge with the support of more than 50 people he started with the Paddy Buckley Round in Snowdonia, Wales, then on to Northern Ireland for the Dennis Rankin Round, then back to Scotland for the Ramsey Round and finishing on home territory to do the Bob Graham Round.

Unfortunately as a result of the weather he was unable to complete the first round, Charlie Ramsay, but did 81km with 7000m of height gain and was on course to get 22hrs 30 minutes. The next stage, the Denis Rankin round, he managed to complete in under 20 hours and 40 minutes, the Paddy Buckley was completed in about 37 hours. It was in this leg he found out why the full challenge had not been completed before.

He said: “The pain and suffering was unbelievable, during the whole event my wife was my rock.

“It has been trying and stressful and hard to stay positive but with out my support team I wouldn’t have been able to get as far as I did.”

Thinking back to when the thought first came to mind he said: “I did wonder why no one had taken on the challenge in a week but I know now. But you can’t get by if you don’t challenge yourself.

“I have suffered from depression over the years and have been to some really dark places, as a police officer you see some hard things to deal with but fell running has been my therapy.

“When I’m having a bad day I need to get out for a run, even my family will tell me to go for a run if they can see me not myself.”