Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 7
DON'T FEAR THE REAPER
In 1972, the Leeds University Climbing Club (LUCC) was going through a period of
change. A new irreverent group was taking charge and I was one of them. We were
mostly disorganised, disheveled and disrespectful and sometimes dishonest.
Climbing was our shared passion. We couldn't understand why everyone didn't
climb but were glad they didn't.
Mountain
magazine was our bible. One copy
would pass around the entire club. Apart from
Mountain
and climbing, lunch in
the salad bar on the first floor of the student union and a string of pubs - the Pack
Horse, the Eldon, the Swan with Two Necks and the Fenton - gave structure to our
lives.
Mainly, we went climbing, managing to fit in just enough university work to keep
our tutors satisfied. There were nearly daily sessions on the Leeds indoor climbing
wall and many impromptu outings to the nearby gritstone crags. There were regu-
lar club meets every Wednesday afternoon, since there were no classes that day
and most weekends we climbed regardless of the weather. The weekends away oc-
casionally turned into a week, and weeks occasionally into an entire month. Doing
course work was a low priority compared with climbing.
None of us who came together at Leeds University in the early 1970s could have
foreseen the impact we would have on the climbing scene or the tragedies that fate
had in store for us. The majority of us weren't even serious climbers when we first
met. A host of factors - group dynamics, adventures born from frustrations, nihil-
ism, sexual and spiritual immaturity, mass hysteria, drug and drink-stimulated de-
lusion, anarchy - coalesced to inspire something exceptional.
Yorkshire gritstone offered the nearest climbing and Almscliff was our favourite.
It became a place of worship for the one world-class rock-climbing star in the club
- John Syrett. There were others in the club nearly as good: Rob Wood, Alan Man-
son and Pete Kitson. And when I say 'club', some 'members' were just part of the
scene and not studying at the university.
In the next year or two, more extremely talented rock-climbers arrived as Leeds
students including Mike Hammill, John Allen, Steve Bancroft and Chris Addy.
Between them they climbed lots of new routes, although Syrett, until he severed a
tendon in his hand trying to open a tin of lobster with a knife, remained the best in
the club. Another talented rock-climber and habitual student, Bernard Newman,
