A COURAGEOUS mountain rescue volunteer has spoken out about his four decades of helping save lives.

In 1975 Chris Malyon moved from London to north Wales to pursue his love of mountaineering.

Within the year he had joined The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team and has remained with the service ever since, receiving a long service award after 40 years recently.

Chris, 68, had a varied career as a Scout leader, bike mechanic and YHA worker whilst helping to save people from dire situations across the Snowdonia National Park and further afield, using a wide range of skills to help save lives.

He told the Cambrian News: “Three years after signing up, I first became involved with Mountain Rescue Search Dogs helping to train a friend’s dog by acting as a ‘body’.

“I continued helping with the training of dogs until I trained my own dog in 1984 and a second dog in 1987.

“Following the retirement of the dogs and the unsuccessful training of a third dog, who turned out to be deaf, I remained involved with SARDA helping with the training of dogs including the first trailing dogs in Mountain Rescue in England and Wales.

“I was made an honorary life member of SARDA (Wales) in 2014 and I still help out at the monthly training weekends.”

Read the full story in this Thursday’s north editions of the Cambrian News