A SPRIGHTLY pensioner is getting in shape for a 50-mile charity trek across picturesque English countryside.

Sixty-eight-year-old grandad David Hawkins - of Broadlands Drive, Malvern - is one of 300 people joining the Bigfoot Challenge in Wiltshire this summer in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The event is in its fourth year and participants will be trekking from Pewsey to Avebury over three days - between Friday, August 26 and Sunday, August 28.

Along the way they will take in some of Britain's most famous sites, such as the chalk horses and stone circles.

Mr Hawkins - a former Worcester City Council surveyor - signed up for the challenge after seeing an advert in the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers' magazine.

"At the council I was involved in giving grants to disabled people and came across people with MS," he said.

"A lot of them were quite young so it wasn't a case of them being at the end of their lives and I wanted to do something to help."

And the keen walker is no stranger to such events, having also taken part in the 25-mile Chatsworth Challenge in Derbyshire two years ago and the Three Peaks Challenge in North Yorkshire in 2002.

The Leadon Vale Ramblers' Association member is now preparing by increasing the length of his daily walks on the Malvern Hills with his dog.

He has already raised £200 in sponsorship and needs to raise another £200 to take part.

"I'm really looking forward to it and get the impression it should be good fun but hope I don't have second thoughts about it when I'm halfway around!" he said.

Anyone wanting to sponsor Mr Hawkins can contact him on 01684 574205.