A BRADFORD-BORN kayaker has been honoured for his contribution to the sport which includes paddling down Everest.

Mick Hopkinson, 71, now lives in New Zealand where he runs a kayak school and has been awarded the Order of Merit.

His career has included being a member of teams to record the first descents of the river Inn in Switzerland and Austria, the Blue Nile in Ethiopia and the Dudh Khosi in Nepal which runs off the world's highest mountain.

In 2009 he was inducted into the International White Water Hall of Fame in recognition of his exploits.

But his paddling life started St Bedes' Grammar School which had a very active scout troop.

He said: "In the early 1960s we built wood and canvas kayaks in the school tech department and destroyed them on the Aire and the Wharfe.

"We slowly graduated to fibre glass kayaks in 1965 and started racing at kayak slaloms all over Britain. Eventually 'Bradford A', Dave Crolla, Roger Huyton and self made it to number three team in Britain. The top two teams were made up of British Team members."

He has fond memories of growing up in Bradford: "In the 1960s the mills were still omnipotent. I lived in Heaton, back of Lister's Mill, and my early childhood memories are of walking to school through large black canyons pulsating with the noise of the looms.

"I was born in 1948 and we were all still on ration cards. I can still remember remember the weekly ration of cod liver oil and orange juice. When I was about ten we moved to Westfield Road and I used to walk through Manningham Mills cricket ground to St Bede's. I must have done that for seven years."

His top highlight of his career is still the first expedition when in 1972 his group made the first descent of the top section of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.

He said: "The three of us were 'Yorkshire Lads', myself, Mike Jones from Keighley, and Dave Burtenshaw from Doncaster. We sold the expedition as being fraught with danger - Class 5 white water, bandits and crocodiles.

"Unfortunately the river lived up to our rhetoric and we paddled lots of Class 5 white water, got shot at by the local Shifta bandits (they missed) and got frightened to death by some 4 and 5 metre crocodiles. Young and dumb but good kayakers and lucky!"

Mr Hopkinson left Bradford in 1978 after working at Cardinal Hinsley Grammar School for seven years. He added: "I'd just come back from an expedition to Baltistan where Mike Jones had drowned. I guess in hindsight I was pretty unsettled."

He still has cousins scattered over Yorkshire and comes back to the district sporadically.

"I brought my family back in 2013 to catch up with all my old school friends and the guys I paddled, caved and climbed with in the 1970's. My son, aged 15 complained that everyone in Yorkshire was over 60 years old! 'Just my friends' I had to tell him. But he did get to paddle with the Bradford and Airedale club down in Bingley. They were much younger and very good kayakers."

He said he was honoured to receive the Order of Merit: "I guess the MNZM is more of a reflection that the outside world has started to recognise kayaking as a serious sport. When we were driving around England in 1975 trying to get sponsorship to paddle down Everest we were still having to explain what white water kayaking actually was."