UKC

Having just read Dennis Gray's two autobiographies back to back I have to say that I've never read any other books with a higher body count !
There was less blood and carnage in Orwell's Spanish civil war saga Homage to Catalonia.
I used to think Joe Simpson was a disaster waiting to happen,but Dennis !
Page after page of 'Unfortunately X was soon to die when he/she was swept away by an avalanche,killed in a rockfall,fell down a crevasse,died in car crash,fell to the bottom of the cliff' etc etc.
Or my favourite 'died in mysterious circumstances' !
I'm sure the death count must easily run into three figures.
So...if a sixty something Yorkshireman asks you to share a rope tell him you're washing your hair,taking Tiddles to be de-clawed,you can't miss your flower arranging course.
To go climbing with this man risks being impaled on a particularly sharp spike of rock or hit on the head by a block of frozen urine jettisoned by a passing Easy Jet en-route to Malaga !
Now I know where the fast show got the idea for Unlucky Alf !

In reply to Jonno:

A lot of it is pure fiction (allegedly). The man does live in something of a fantasy world. A sort of flat-cap Michael Jackson.

In reply to Jonno:
as I knew a lot of the people he talked of does that make me unlucky as well?
I also heard about the death of Queen Mary, George VI,Elizabeth, Churchill, Sundry other people who lived in London. Does that mean I should be barred from London.

Dennis's book rope boy was one of the better ones of its time, his reputation is that of a second league climber but he did get up some hard routes with some good partners so he must have been a safe partner.
He was also the first fuhrer of the BMC, started the empire building that you now see. Worked hard at it for a few years as well, I do not think anyone puts quite the same number of hours in now as when he was getting things running although people now have a life and family outside climbing.

In reply to Jonno:

>Having just read Dennis Gray's two autobiographies back to back

Shome mistake, surely? I personally have read three, and there must be more.

Contrary to tobyfk, I have heard that if anything some of the good bits are left out!

In reply to sutty:

Agreed...Dennis offers some of the best first hand accounts of the heady days of The Bradford Lads,The Rock & Ice and the Creagh Ddu mob....however.I've definitely not come across another climber who has so many deceased former partners.
Is Dennis,as whatisname above suggests,a fantasist ? Dennis often alludes to something but doesn't quite come clean.Is he as many people believe gay ? Not that it matters of course but in his books he only offers vague suggestions as to where he's at in this regard.

In reply to Jonno: if you read rope boy then it seems to give a good 'storytellers' (ie exaggerated but still plausible) account of various incidents. Full of enthusiasm and a good read.
Tight Rope contains many of the same stories- now exaggerated almost beyond recognition.
Failing memory, or perhaps desire to make events seem even more exciting...

In reply to Jonno:

Went to a lecture of his in Carlisle - he was very entertaining and seemed a nice chap. I didn't get the impression he was fantasising at all.

In reply to Dave Hunter:


I was very fortunate to go out to the Czech sandstone on a BMC trip with Dennis, Craig Smith and Tony Ryan back in 1987 as the sort of token useless punter. Bits of that trip made it into one of his books but unrecognisably so - more or less 100% b*llsh*t. Whatever ... his achievements with the BMC speak for themselves.

In reply to JonC:
The projector being slightly above waist height at carlisle proberbly obscured your veiw, Leading to your belief of
the impression he gives reality a chance, and is not really
into fantasy, or boys.