Six Year Old Bags Wainwrights

A six-year-old boy is reputedly the youngest person to have climbed all 214 Wainwrights in the Lake District.

The youngster, Ben Fleetwood from Selside, near Cumbria climbed the mountains with his father completing more than 135,000 feet of climbing along the way and finishing at the summit of Tarn Crag. The youngster reached his first top, Longmoor, when he was just two.

According to the Telegraph though, John Burland, a spokesman for the Wainwright Society, said: "Until it's been ratified by the committee from the society, we're not prepared to acknowledge the claim."

Which rather begs the question of how you prove you've reached the top of every one of the Wainwrights. Clearly it's not impossible since the current record holder Kerry Regan - according to the Society's web site - was just seven years and nine months old when she reached the top of her final fell having started at the age of three years and two months.

Worryingly, Kerry's younger brother, Robin who is just four has already embarked on his Wainwright-bagging way, so the record may go younger still in the future...

Wainwright Society web site at www.wainwright.org.uk.