A year after being shot by gunman Derrick Bird, Harry Berger’s life has undergone a dramatic change. But Alex Mace finds that, despite the trauma, the incident has left the pub landlord with a positive outlook and a desire to repay those who were there for him in his hour of need.

HARRY BERGER is buzzing around the lounge of his pub near Boot in the Lake District, reeling off a list of tasks he has to complete. He takes a call. He greets some guests.

He has a business to run and, quite rightly, my questioning must fit in around the frequent distractions which come with owning a busy pub and bed and breakfast.

Introductions aside, he has yet to utter a word to me and already it is clear his demeanour is as fresh and breezy as the hilltops which loom above The Woolpack Inn on all sides. Harry’s injuries and experiences could dominate this cosy little walkers’ haven; instead they fade into near insignificance behind his energetic presence.

After signing for a delivery and seating a table of motorcyclists, the 40-year-old fatherof- two finally sits down, ensuring the phone is within reach and that he has full view of his patrons in the bar.

“We try to keep it jovial,” he says, taking a slurp of coffee. “I cannot complain.”

Harry could be forgiven a moan. This time last year, he was on a banking run in the village of Seascale, West Cumbria, when he crossed the path of taxi-driving gunman Derrick Bird. He was shot twice, once in the hand and once in the arm, the shot tearing away the soft tissue from his right forearm and with it one and a half fingers.

It is an episode he is uncomfortable retelling now, but shortly afterwards he told Anne Spackman, his friend and journalist for The Times, that he remembered coming face to face with Bird. “He was right alongside me. He was puce in colour, anxious, nervous, sweating profusely,”

he said.

“I could see a shotgun sticking up by the side of his seat, leaning against the seatbelt. Then he started fiddling with the gun and I thought, ‘He’s going to use it’.”

The rest was a blur, as Harry became one of 25 people shot, but not one of the 12 tragically killed.

Twelve months later, The Woolpack Inn has had an overhaul, and Harry said he has too.

“Things have changed massively,” he says.

“I’m still paralysed in my right arm. I am trying to speed up the process as much as possible by going to the gym and doing lots of running.

But I am still going to the hospital on a regular basis for check-ups.

“I’m just having to adapt to a completely different way of life.”

The former financial advisor moved to Cumbria from London 13 years ago, running another pub in Eskdale before taking over The Woolpack Inn and Stanley House, a B&B, in March last year.

The plan was to see out the summer then get to work on renovating the pub in time for the new season. What happened in between was certainly not part of that scheme, but Harry says it failed to derail the ambition.

“Life is too short and I just want to get on with it,” he says. “There is no point sitting around moping about it because you are not doing anybody any favours.

“I am positive. I want to be and I need to be.

There is still so much to do with the children and I am trying to lead as normal a life as possible.

I suppose from the children’s point of view, the best thing is that they have still got me.

“There is a sense of joviality to it. My wife told them what had happened at about midnight on the day, and the morning afterwards my son went running across to see his friend shouting, ‘You’ll never believe it – my dad has been shot’.”

With his injury ruling him out of many of the day-to-day tasks around the pub – although not from office duty, he says with a roll of the eyes – Harry has decided to raise money for The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS).

A GNAAS crew from Durham Tees Valley Airport flew across the Pennines to take Harry to the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, in the aftermath of the shooting.

He says: “The journey took what I believe was between seven and ten minutes. By road, that would have taken an hour and a half, and I wouldn’t have made it. I would have lost too much blood.”

Now he hopes to put something back. He has signed up for the Lake District 3,000ers, where participants have to climb the four highest peaks in England, all in the Lake District, in three days. He readily admits it is a challenge well beyond his current capabilities.

“It isn’t going to be easy,” he says. “At the moment, I can’t walk up a hill because it jars my elbow which is incredibly painful. That is a big issue. I hope it is going to pass.

“I have no desire to do it at all, but it presents me with a personal challenge.

“Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days, and while there is not a hope of me doing that, this is something that I can do which is on my doorstep and which raises awareness of the vital work being carried out by the air ambulance.”

Members of the public are invited to join Harry on the trek, which takes place from September 22 to 25. The peaks are Scafell Pike, Scafell, Helvellyn and Skiddaw. Participants are asked to raise a minimum of £650, which will include three nights’ accommodation, the use of experienced mountain guides, transport to and from the accommodation and a substantial donation to GNAAS.

• For more information, visit maximumadventure.com/charities.html or call 01768- 371289.