In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
> (In reply to jamesgreenfield)
>
> Good grief. Would you like one of us to come round and make you a cup of warm milk?
>
> HTF do you people imagine we all learned to climb before there were such things as climbing walls?
>
> jcm
Good point, if a trifle strident, but what you're forgetting is that back in the day, there weren't the same options as there are now.
Whichever way you choose to learn, it boils down to accepting the authority of someone more experienced. In 1956 there wasn't much of an alternative to going to a crag and having a go. Either with a similarly motivated mate and a length of tow rope, or hopefully an experienced climber. Today we have lots of options, but still, the person with little or no experience has to trust those with more, and there's a large body of people who consider climbing qualifications to be inherently more valuable than [I think] they actually are. I think it's being a bit narrow-minded to criticise a relative beginner, in 2013, for wanting to introduce a friend to the activity in a different way to how it would have been done when the Beatles were still together. Times change.