Just recieved my copy of the new biography of J W Puttrell by J.P.Craddock and what a remarkable and inspiring read it is.
For those of you who don't know Puttrell is the undisputed father of gritstone climbing and caving and this is a fascinating insight into just how he and the other early Peak climbers and cavers developed their scrambles into the sport that we know today.
Often he would walk vast distances to the crags and with rudimentary gear, often solo, would add a few climbs before walking back home to Sheffield.
Puttrell did not consider himself a strong walker, but one New Years day, as a teenager, he walked from Castleton via Hope to meet some friends at The Snake, missing them he continued on the project hoping to catch them. Up the Snake to Fairbrook and on to the Kinder plateau and with what must have been a fairly rudimentary OS map at the time, he proceeded to navigate his way solo across the bog to Edale.
A climb over Mam Tor and down into Castleton to the rendevous at the Peak Hotel, where he arrived an hour before his friends. He then walked the 16 miles back to Sheffield. Not bad for a lad that had to wear leg irons as a boy.
But it is his climbing which will interest UKCers, new routes covering all the Peak District from his beloved Wharncliffe as far as Matlock, Brassington, Black Rocks and all crags N,S,E + W. At the same time making the initial descents of many of the caves and potholes with just a warm jumper and a candle. Eventually he enlisted other people into the growing sport and with his good friend W.J.Watson and members of the newly formed Kwynder Club they developed and wrote up routes that were to become the foundation of Peak District climbing.
Putrell climbed throughout the whole of the UK and even in the Alps. One new route, the Ben Nuis chimney on Arran climbed in 1901 was not repeated until 1955, and is still graded VS today.
My introduction into climbing bears far closer relation to JWPs than it does to the wall bred climbers of today, and it may help you newbies to understand why us oldies shake our heads at some of the 'beta' requested on here and despair of people who have been 'climbing' indoors for a year and who are scared of taking their first steps outdoors, even if its 5 grades easier than they are climbing indoors.
If you have any interest in climbing history read this book, if you can't afford it get your library to stock it.
