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Ramblings

Bredon Hill with Steve Boycott

Ramblings

BBC

Places & Travel, Science, Nature, Society & Culture

4.5768 Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Clare hikes up Bredon Hill with Steve Boycott, founder of the Be You Programme, an outdoor‑based initiative that helps young people build confidence and resilience. Steve explains how his work grew from his own experiences of insecurity, bullying, military service and years spent travelling the world. He reflects on how the outdoors can transform young people, why taking “one more step” can shift a mindset, and his belief that hills can teach us more about ourselves than any classroom. Clare and Steve met at The Queen Elizabeth Pub in Elmley Castle and began their walk from there. Bredon, he says, isn’t the biggest or the most beautiful hill, but it has soul and a healing quality.

Map: OS Explorer Map OL45 – The Cotswolds (North) Grid Ref: SO982411

Presenter: Clare Balding Producer: Karen Gregor

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:07.0

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0:09.5

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0:11.6

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We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dolion with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihelina. I'm excited. You're dead to me. The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:46.5

Well, if I'm honest, I always say the hills and mountains represent life. So we have these ups and we have these downs. You're not kind of guaranteed this view at the end of it, but it's that digging in.

0:52.6

I prefer hard walks. I want it to be wet. I want it to be

0:57.3

cold because that's where you have to dig deep. And for my young people especially, it's a challenge

1:04.3

that they normally would choose not to put themselves in for. So if they want that success,

1:10.6

I'm not carrying them up.

1:12.0

They've got to do it themselves.

1:13.5

So long, hard walks, it's about great.

1:17.9

I'm in Worcestershire today, walking with Steve Boycott, whose job now, who you have found

1:24.2

your calling in life because your job is to walk with young people or to

1:28.0

use walking as a way of helping them through challenges that they might have. Yeah, it's part of a

1:34.4

bigger programme. So I'm a big believer in being outdoors. So a lot of the activities that I

1:40.0

take on with the students are predominantly outdoors. and walking makes up a chunk of that.

1:48.0

And the hill that we are going to climb today is your local hill?

1:51.8

Yeah, I live on the base of it, on the north side, so I'm constantly upbreeding hill,

1:57.8

especially in more the summer months, I suppose, just because of access.

...

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