Then, as he approached his 50th birthday, he walked away from it all – literally – to follow a very different path.

He threw the account books, board meetings and public brickbats and took to the fresh air, as mastermind of the country’s most successful new recreational walk, the Coleridge Way in Somerset.

"My wife, Linda, and I had talked about doing something different for quite a long time," said Alan, now 52. "The pressures of work had grown enormously, and although it never made me physically ill, Linda always said that at the weekends she could see me switch into a different mode on Sunday afternoons as I started thinking about returning to the office and the problems I’d be facing."

And there were problems aplenty as the NHS lurched from one financial crisis to another and underwent multiple reorganisations. Alan had the daunting – some would say nightmarish – task of identifying and managing trust overspends, making huge savings where necessary and implementing often difficult and controversial cutbacks.

"As finance director I was the mouthpiece of the trust and it would be my job to announce these problems at public meetings and then end up on the front pages."

Alan had worked in the public sector all his life, and had been a finance director for 13 years when, in October, 2003, he decided that the time had come for change.

"I had no job to go to, so it was a leap of faith, but I just knew it was time to go and do something different. We had never been particularly material people, and I was highly paid, so we’d had a good income for a number of years and hadn’t really spent it," he said.

A love of the outdoor life – he’s always enjoyed walking and playing sports – led him to apply for the part-time position as Coleridge Way project officer when he saw it advertised as he served out his three months notice with the NHS.

"There were lots of applicants for the job and I wondered really what they would think of me, having spent all my life in an office. And at my age? Might they think there was something wrong with me?"

He had to wait several weeks to find out if he had been successful. The good news was broken in a meeting with his new boss – "a super young man with a pony tail" – at a Little Chef services off the M5 in Devon.

Since then, the establishment of the Coleridge Way, a 36-mile walk which links the Quantocks with Exmoor National Park, has become a passion for a man who has taken a momentous personal upheaval in his stride - and loved every exciting second of it.

"I used to negotiate with consultants and doctors – and now I negotiate with farmers and landowners. You need the same skills, really," he said.

The walk has been an unprecedented success, with hundreds enjoying the fabulous varied scenery, following the footsteps of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who drew inspiration for some of his best-known works from the beautiful countryside.

Sheer poetry, too, for Alan Martingell, a man who spent years finding solutions for others – and finally found the perfect one for himself.

Read about the Coleridge Way at www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/coleridgeway or phone Porlock Visitor Centre 01643 863150.