BBC Radio Cumbria

It's bleak, windblown and downright inhospitable…so why would Cross Fell, the highest of the Pennines, lure Gordon Swindlehurst to Cumbria's eastern edge for a night's camping…even in July…?

After all, the hill used to be known as "Fiend's Fell", because the howling gales on its summit led lowlanders below to believe evil spirits lurked in its upper reaches.

The answer - the efforts of Rotarians in the Eden Valley, who reckon to have raised £40,000 in a week to buy ShelterBoxes.

They're the lifesaving containers, costing £490 each, which are sent out to disaster zones all over the world when families need urgent re-homing.

Each holds not just a tent, but equipment for cooking, sleeping and water purification. But even tough kit like this faces a challenge in surviving a week on windy Cross Fell….as did the "guests" who spent a night up there.

In Gordon's case, that night coincided with quite possibly the highest ever Rotary Club meeting in England. And for Appleby Rotarians and their comrades from Upper Eden, it was an opportunity to raise a glass to their president John Taylor's 60th birthday… although even John, a veteran of a Rotary trip to Mali which involved driving a pink ice cream van across the Sahara, was somewhat surprised to find his fellow Westmerians in full dinner dress at nearly 3,000 feet….

As to Gordon Swindlehurst: "Slept like a log…snug as a bug in a rug in the ShelterBox tent….although the anaesthetic may have helped…."