The village that bought a stretcher | Fell End Rescue Team

Last month a new hill stretcher arrived at the base. It cost a little over £3,000, and not one pound of it came from government — because none of our funding does. We wanted to write down where it actually came from, because the list says something worth saying.

The ledger

It came from the primary school's autumn bake sale (£214 — the lemon drizzle sold out in eleven minutes). From the two quiz nights at the pub, where the landlord matched the door take unprompted. From a sponsored swim by a man in his seventies whom we carried off the hill three winters ago and who has raised money for us every year since. From the collection tins in the village shop, the café and the outdoor shop, which between them quietly gather about £900 a year in walkers' change. From a talk we gave to a WI group who then held a plant sale. And from a plain envelope pushed through the base door in January containing £500 and a note that said only: "You know why. Thank you."

We never found out who. If you are reading this: it is strapped to the new stretcher's story forever.

Why it works this way

People sometimes ask, slightly outraged on our behalf, why mountain rescue is not state-funded. The honest answer is that most of us would not change the model. Independence means we answer to the fells and the people on them, not to a budget line. And a team funded by its own valley is held by its own valley — every tin, quiz and lemon drizzle is a thread tying us to the place we serve.

What £3,000 of cake buys

The new stretcher splits for carrying, runs on a detachable wheel for the long bridleway sections, and will be lowered over crags, dragged across boulder fields, and hammered by everything the eastern fells can do to it for the next fifteen years or so. Some time in that fifteen years, it will carry someone you know.

If you would like to be part of the next line in the ledger — the casualty bag is due for replacement this winter — there is a donate button at the top of the page, and the tins are where they have always been.