ADVENTUROUS Bill Bush plans to spend his retirement making mountains out of molehills.For the death-defying retired civil servant is set to risk life and limb scaling the mountains of … Suffolk.

ADVENTUROUS Bill Bush plans to spend his retirement making mountains out of molehills.

For the death-defying retired civil servant is set to risk life and limb scaling the mountains of … Suffolk.

Batty Bill, 72, of Belmont Road, Ipswich, is scared of heights, but hopes his Suffolk Mountain Rescue Team will not fire-up his phobia.

He said: "I wanted something glamorous and dangerous, but without involving too much work.

"It's something that wouldn't be testing, but it would sound as if it was."

When he mentioned the idea of the rescue squad, his daughter Sharon had a T-shirt made for Bill, which he sports proudly around the town.

He said: "I was on a coach trip a few days after I got the T-shirt, so I wore it on that.

"Everyone was from Ipswich and they all thought it was funny, anybody would really."

Bill hails from Liverpool originally, but he has come to know the terrain of Suffolk well during his 49 years in the county.

And it was with full knowledge of the lie of the land that the society was created.

He said: "You can drive all the way to Cambridge without seeing a hill and it's a good job really, because I don't like heights."

But brave Bill's bravado doesn't stretch as far as his own home. DIY duties requiring a head for heights are left to the professionals.

He said: "If the guttering needs doing I don't get up the ladder – I get someone else in to do it.

Fast Facts

Suffolk's highest point is at Rede between Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill - only 420ft above sea level.

But Bill could try out Bishops Hill, Lavender Hill or Crane Hill in Ipswich. And what about Bent Hill in Felixstowe!

East Anglia is the lowest of low when it comes to hills. Norfolk is the flattest county in England, beating Suffolk into 2nd place by about 100ft.

But if you though the East of England was pretty pancake-like, check out the Maldives – if you can afford it. The country's highest point is only 8ft above sea level.

England's highest point is Scafell Pike at 3,210ft, but Ben Nevis, at 4,408ft, is Britain's loftiest peak.

Both are way behind Europe's highest mountain – the western summit of Mount Elbrus towers more than 18,000ft over the Russian-Georgia border.

Everest is the daddy of them all. The fabled highest peak in the world is a whopping 29,035ft above sea level.

Weblinks

www.bubl.ac.uk/org/tacit/marilyns/chapter6.htm

www.elbrus.org

www.everestnews.com