Twenty-eight years, 31,000 miles, one front door: Karl Bushby walks home

He left his mother's house in Hull in 1998 with a rucksack, a cart and two rules: no vehicle would ever carry him forward, and he would not come home until his own feet did. On Monday, Karl Bushby, 57, a former paratrooper, pushed that same cart into Queen Victoria Square to a hero's welcome, then walked the last stretch to his mother Angela's door — 'Where have you been?' she asked, hugging him under a 'Welcome Home Son' banner. In between: 31,000 miles across four continents and 30 countries, the jungles of the Darién Gap, the frozen Bering Strait crossed on foot, a 31-day swim across the Caspian Sea and, last month, a swim across the English Channel. He met his 12-year-old granddaughter for the first time. He had not seen his mother in a decade.