UKC

Evening

I’m currently slowly reading this book, and am near the end where Patey is telling sarcastic tales about other climbers, anonomysing  their names within the text.

I understand the Human Squirrel to be Joe  Brown.

Who was the French Guide named X.X ‘ who sniffed the air, said non, then descended with a pretty blonde’

Was it Rebuffat?

Any help with the other anonomysed names would be helpful too.

Thanks

Dave

Joe Brown was always referred to as The Human Fly? 

It was Armand Charlet I think. 'Charlet a dit!'

'Sardonic' rather than 'sarcastic'?

What a great book! Got my copy in 1976 (£4!) and developed a nostalgia for a place and a time I had nothing to do with - 1950's Cairngorms. A real tragedy that Patey died so young.

"Back home in the Cairngorms they all would agree what an ignorant bastard old Charlet must be"

Definitely my favourite of the poems.

Sung to the tune of " The Green Glens of Antrim". My favourite lines are probably

" To hell with the Gauloises, the garlic,the wine, it' s bridies and chips in the old Brauch Dryne"

"And lassies that speak the same language as you".

It perfectly captures the yearning for Scotland when overseas.

Curiously the original article in Mountain didn't asterisk Charlet's name. (I've just looked it up, how sad is that?!)

Both of these are lost on me.

My favourite distantly remembered line from One Man's Mountains was his view that a season in the Alps was good training for the Cairngorms.

I thought that was "Masherbrum, Gasherbrum and Distaghil Sar are all good training for Dark Lochnagar".

You're probably right. I haven't read it since the late 1980s. The Alps being good training for the Cairngorms was always a favourite (mis?) trope of a friend who is particularly Cairngorm obsessed.

That' s the version I remember. I only met Tom Patey once, a year before he died, when I was an impecunious student in my early climbing days in the 'Coe. A number of years ago I had a conversation in the Dundonnell hotel with the late Selbie Florence the former hotel owner who remembered him and  his involvement in the An Teallach accident victim recovery back in tha late 60' s.  About 10 years ago  I also shared memories of him and his accordion with an old barman in the pre- refurbishment  Fife arms in Braemar. I just had to sing

" The shades of night were falling fast ,as from the Fife a man was cast he lay forgotten in the snow , his friends had left an hour ago

A taxi to the Derry gate, the night is cold, the hour is  late, the woman shook her old grey head , the taxi driver' s gone to bed

Then suddenly to his surprise,a maiden stood before his eyes, she said to him its cold you be you  won't be cold in bed with me.

But he said my comrades wait for me, I cannot stay this night with thee, but as he left he gave a sigh, a tear stood in his bright blue eye

The cold north wind blew down the glen, the mist lay low upon the Ben, his footsteps lost in drifting snow, he staggered blindly to and fro

They found his corpse beneath the  ice,they raised a stone with this device, "He died alone, it came to pass , from mixing whisky with his Bass"

Indeed, yes, my mistake

That’s the word, thanks

Yes. I don’t want to finish it. Mines the copy with him on a snowy ledge with ice axe and rope. He seemed a decent and fun sort of bloke.

Thanks Rob. 

Same cover as mine. Can you imagine one of today's 'names' getting excited about putting up a brand new V.Diff? I think he said of Ardverikie Wall that it was the best route he ever walked past.

You’d be lucky to get a taxi in Braemar these days!

Been wondering how to phrase this since the "my favourite lines from the songs" started appearing in the thread. Tom Patey was an amazing climber and writer and must have been an incredibly entertaining guy to be with; I loved 99.9% of the book, but I´ve always found two lines of "MacInnes´s Mountain Patrol" unacceptable: "Occasional mischief is wrought by the dogs/On Englishmen, Irishmen, Welshmen and Wogs". He would have known his audience, and I can hear the guffaws in the hut when he sang that.

Simply of its time I think.

Yes, but even then it was pretty derogatory at best.

I' m afraid that' s true!

Maybe change it to frogs to maintain the probably intended level of playfulness.

Genius!

"...on Englishmen, Irishmen, and Welshmen, especially Gogs!"

But probably lost meaning for most.