Culm Dancing - Salute to the Admiral

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I swore gently about weather forecasting as the rain drummed hard on the car windscreen. It had been dry when I chucked my kit in the car at home. From Launceston onwards thick mist enveloped all. By the time we had all arrived at Morwenstow, nothing had improved. A damp, miserable team wandered through soaked fields to the lookout above Henna Cliff. At this point, I felt that the chances of filming anything worth watching were virtually non-existent and team morale (along with Dave Vigger's and Iain Peters' humour) plumbed new depths.

I wandered down through the murk and filmed a couple of time-lapses and once or twice managed to see Cornakey Cliff. After hanging around for hours and hours, the mist started to lift and we made the decision to have a go at filming Wrecker's Slab. By the time we finished, it had become one of those magical days when you can never imagine it to rain ever again. The whole thing was filmed in a day with one main camera, Dave Linnett's super drone work and some very useful long shots from Emma Linnett, who in addition managed to produce a painting and read a good chunk of her book. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Dave Viggers for his help and great patience and Iain Peters for his unique capacity to do any piece to camera in a single take whilst being rude to all around him in between. This is a film of friendship and adventure. Talking to 'Zeke' Deacon and knowing what I do of Admiral Keith Lawder and Tom Patey, I strongly suspect that their day out on the first ascent cemented these values between the trio.

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This series has been written and published ahead of the forthcoming publication of The Climbers' Club Guide to The Culm Coast and Baggy Point, which will be available later this year.

For more information visit The Climbers' Club website.

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