Centurion Way, Chichester
Ramblings
BBC
4.5 • 768 Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2018
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Clare Balding hears the uplifting story of how walking helped a young man recover from a brain injury.
At the age of 23, Matt Masson fell off a roof during a night out. He was in a coma for six weeks and, when he awoke, couldn't walk, talk or sit-up. When his voice returned, so did a determination to return to his previously active life. Walking formed a central part of his rehab; his first goal was to walk just 300 metres but by 2014 Matt had walked the Amsterdam Marathon which took 9 hours and 37 minutes.
In this edition of Ramblings, Matt and his mother, Anne, walk a stretch of the Centurion Way in Chichester and recall his many endeavours. The Centurion Way is a route between Chichester and West Dean which follows the line of part of the disused Chichester to Midhurst Railway.
Producer: Karen Gregor.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I want to tell you why I love podcasting. |
| 0:04.7 | Hi, my name's Tommy Dixon, and I make podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm a big fan of stories, always loved a good book. |
| 0:11.4 | But when I started commuting for my first job, I discovered podcasts. |
| 0:15.4 | I was blown away by how a creative idea and the right mixture of sounds could take you into |
| 0:19.2 | a whole new world full of incredible stories. You know, the type that make you go, wow. And that kind of inspired me to give |
| 0:25.3 | it a go myself, which, to cut a long story short, led to a BBC training scheme and a whole new career |
| 0:30.4 | giving other people that exact same feeling. So if you want to hear amazing stories that make you go |
| 0:34.8 | wow like I did, they're just a tap or click away on BBC sounds |
| 0:38.5 | this is the BBC hello I'm Claire Balding thank you so much for downloading this podcast |
| 0:46.4 | I hope you enjoy ramblings it's an overcast day rather grey overhead but not too much wind |
| 0:52.4 | and I'm in the south of England near |
| 0:54.3 | Chichester and not very far from Chichester station and I'm going to walk a section of the |
| 0:58.7 | Centurion Way in the company of Matt and Anne Masson if you want to follow us on the map |
| 1:04.1 | we're on Explorer OL8 which is Chichester and Selsey and the grid reference for where we're starting is it's on a street |
| 1:12.4 | called Westgate basically go to the end of that road and the footpath starts but it's SU 847 |
| 1:17.9 | 047 Matt is ahead of me I can see him in a rusty orange coloured rain mac and bright red and blue |
| 1:26.8 | shorts his mother Anna next him for |
| 1:28.6 | Matt walking has been a new challenge because he had to learn how to do it all |
| 1:34.3 | over again and I think Matt you'll explain why but walking has been a huge part |
| 1:40.4 | of your recovery what happened to you in November 2010, I fell 26 foot |
| 1:46.7 | through a roof in London and I was in a coma and when I worked for like six weeks and when I woke |
... |
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