WHEN you have volunteered in Cambodia during Pol Pot's terrible regime and helped recovering drug addicts in Sweden, a local walking challenge might seem tame by comparison.

But not for Lillis Oldham, 94, who likes to attack life and all it throws at her with gusto.

"Sometimes life's best adventures are right on your doorstep," she smiles.

Lillis is and has been many things - great-grandmother, trailblazing social worker, military wife, worldwide traveller - but for the moment she is enjoying her role as poster girl for Voluntary Action South Lanarkshire's new Strolling Steady walking initiative.

"They give you a pedometer and it makes you think about how much walking you're doing every day," she explains, adding with a frown: "But I really do need to improve, I think. I'm doing about 1000 steps and my friend is already up to 5000. And she has just had her hip replaced..."

The Strolling Steady initiative is part of the national Reshaping Care for Older People (RCOP) programme, which aims to help growing numbers of people over 65 to continue to live full, positive and independent lives.

The initiative, which was backed by Big Lottery funding, gives participants a pedometer and a diary to mark progress plus information on how they can be more active in their day-to-day lives. They challenge themselves to reach a target such as moving around more in their homes, walking to the local shops or further afield.

The aim is that by the end of the programme, those taking part will feel fitter, healthier and more confident.

"It keeps me active," says Lillis, cheerfully. "There are about 100 of us signed up already."

Lillis grew up in Bearsden and studied English at Glasgow University, where she met her future husband Dick. He served in the Second World War, and the couple moved around the UK.

"It was a strange life, being shuttled around, but you went where you had to go," says Lillis.

After the war, Dick got a job in graduate training with Rolls-Royce in Derby and when he was transferred up to East Kilbride, the couple moved to Strathaven.

Sadly, Dick died suddenly in 1973.

"It was shattering," recalls Lillis. "I thought - what the hell am I going to do now? But after a while, I pulled myself together."

Lillis retrained as a social worker, working with recovering drug addicts and alcoholics in Easterhouse and, for a short time, in Sweden.

"I had heard of a man running a commune in Sweden, helping recovering drug addicts and alcoholics so I wrote to ask if I could come and work with him," says Lillis.

"He sent back a letter with just one word on the page - why? My friend's girlfriend had died from an overdose, and I remember thinking - what a waste of a beautiful, talented girl. That was why.

"It was a revelation. I had to pay £10 a week towards the food and clean the toilets. But I learned a lot."

In the 70s, Lillis also spent time in Cambodia, volunteering as part of the humanitarian effort during Pol Pot's regime and the resulting genocide.

" I was based at a camp on the Thailand border, in the middle of a vast rice field. We helped to get food to displaced children, who were starving," says Lillis.

"I felt angry and helpless. Awful things were happening outside our camp - our team reported seeing skulls lying on the streets. But the humanitarian effort did prevent more from dying and I'm glad I played a part."

In recent years, Lillis - who has four children, has travelled the world.

"I loved Ohio, India, Singapore, Italy... and China was interesting," she says.

"Now I stay closer to home and family (I have three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren)."

She smiles: "I've had quite an interesting life, I think - people seem to like hearing about it.

"I've never really been one to sit around and let life pass by."

For further information on Strolling Steady, visit www.vaslan.org.uk/locator or contact 01698 300390.