Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But, in fact, this was Whillans at his unexpected best. Guy Lee recalls him standing
Alex up in the corner out of harm's way and almost spitting into his face.
'Look sonny, you may think you're a shit-hot mountaineer but if you want to live,
you don't mess with Kershaw. You got that?'
This was as close as Don could get to showing real concern for someone. Whil-
lans followed careers, and liked what he saw in Alex, an anti-establishment figure
set against the likes of Bonington with whom Don had seriously fallen out after be-
ing dropped from his team for the 1975 Everest expedition.
While Alex was being put right by Whillans, the division bells had rung and a
more serious encounter was about to take place as the two halves of the ACG lined
up against each other in the Hall. Then came a second unexpected intervention.
John Barker, another man to avoid in a fight, or to have on your side, whichever
way you look at it, had the wit to jump in the middle between the two armies of
jousters.
'What the hell are we doing? We're all mates here, right? This is the ACG togeth-
er, right? And what is the ACG doing here? Having a drink, right? And if we aren't
all mates and if we start a brawl, you know what they'll do? They'll close the bar!'
There was a huge cheer, and then applause in appreciation of the brilliance of
Barker's logic. The evening continued as amicably as it had begun.
The winter climbing season of 1981 and early 1982 brought great conditions even
in the Lake District. A bright spring brought Alex and Sarah up to stay with Rose
and me for a final weekend of climbing before Alex left for his pre-monsoon excur-
sion to Shisha Pangma. I was jealous. It was a trip with Doug Scott, Roger Baxter-
Jones and Tut Braithwaite, a very 'professional', well-established crowd.
After Alex died, I asked Sarah if she ever questioned his climbing as he went off
each season on a big trip, or to the Alps in winter. 'No, there was never time. But
also I believed that people should be free to do what they do. I think Alex liked that
in me. His mother and Gwyneth had made serious efforts to calm down his climb-
ing ambitions. But that was Alex. I wasn't going to stop him.'
1. Voytek has yet to write his story. When he does, it will be truly fascinating. You get a glimpse of his amazing strength in the Polish movies made
about him, and also in
Freedom Climbers
where Bernadette McDonald describes his 'art of suffering' as a mixture of courage and national pride
gained from centuries of fighting the Russians and Germans, and the Japanese Samurai tradition where an honourable death is preferable to fail-
ure or any wavering from the path.
[back]
2. As well as being the biggest mountain face in the world both in height and extent, the face is notorious for a number of other reasons. On 24
October 1989 Jerzy Kukuczka was killed in a fall when close to success. The following year in the pre-monsoon, the Slovenian Tomo Cesen
claimed to have made the first ascent solo, but this was disputed primarily by the Russians who made what was the true first ascent post-mon-
soon. Cesen did not help his case by claiming that a photo taken from the ridge by a friend on a previous failed attempt was actually his
own.
[back]
3. This and all the other quotes in this chapter come from an interview in Mountain from 1982.
[back]
4. I cannot recall that there was ever any food at an ACG dinner. There was fish and chips before or a fry up next morning.
[back]
