A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE - One Day as a Tiger - page 26

CHAPTER 4
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
Hitching back to Leeds from the Lakes, I had got as far as Ingleborough, but after
an hour with my thumb out was bored with the view of Pen-y-ghent and its geo-
metric patterns of limestone walls. My daydreaming came to a halt in a squeal of
brakes as Dennis Gray's Russian-made sedan pulled up. At the time, Dennis was
national officer of the British Mountaineering Council, the first to hold that post.
In those days the BMC was Dennis - and a secretary, the indomitable Rita Hal-
lam, an intelligent and effective administrator, a sort of Miss Moneypenny who in
her time at the BMC looked after several national officers. Dennis was a climber of
huge repute, due in part to his ability to tell a good story. He was the keeper of an
oral tradition of mountain lore and a member of the legendary Rock and Ice
Club. [1] We all looked up to Dennis, if a bit askance at times, as someone with
power and connections in the gathering strength of mountaineering bureaucracy.
The BMC itself was a relatively new entity and highly controversial. Most
climbers could see no need for it. Anything that smacked of officialdom was to be
ignored or avoided. After Dennis, Peter Boardman became national officer, fol-
lowed by Alex and then Andy Fanshawe. The latter three all lost their lives in the
mountains, prompting a degree of superstition around the post.
As Dennis stopped, I picked up my rucksack ready to jump in. But when I looked
again, I saw the car was packed with family and young climbing apprentices; my
hope of reaching Leeds before dark faded. So why had Dennis bothered? He rolled
down the window and asked me a question in his nasal Yorkshire drawl that would
completely change my life.
'Sorry youth, I've got no room to give you a lift, but what are you doing next
week?'
'Not a lot. Climbing in Wales probably,' I replied. A fortnight before I had fin-
ished a six-month spell working for Ken Wilson at Mountain magazine; I had not
yet found other work.
'Then come to Plas y Brenin and help us host a delegation of Polish climbers.'
And that was the beginning of my connection to the Poles. I hitched from Shef-
field a couple of days later to Capel Curig and the national training centre of Plas y
Brenin for a week's climbing with all expenses paid. [2] The British climbers there
included the Burgess twins, Adrian and Alan, and me, with support from Davey