Each year I carry a shell from somewhere special. The first year the shell was given to me in Hout bay, South Africa. Last year, my shell was a gift from someone in Wellington, New Zealand (I also carried smaller shells for my two granddaughters which I carefully left, with words of dedication, at a significant place on the Camino Português).

This year, I am going to ask one of my readers – you in fact – if you would kindly donate a scallop shell to be my symbol on the Via de la Plata from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela in September this year. It will travel on my rucksack, every footstep of the way for over 1,000km.

Send it from your country- wherever that may be – with your best wishes, and I shall carefully carry it for the whole of the Camino to the Cathedral of St. James in Santiago, where I shall definitely be giving thanks for having finished my walk.

At the end of the walk, I frame the Compostela and the shell together and they all hang in pride of place in TOPO in Farndale.

(Note – I would have asked for two shells as I shall also be doing a riding Camino, from Shetland to the Scilly Isles in June, but I do not want to stretch your goodwill too far).

Looking forward to someone taking me up on this request.

Stuart