In reply to Mick Ward:
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> Didn't Crowley do a FA on the Needle? And wasn't a very young Dennis Gray part of a plot to blow it up?
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Crowley did indeed do a first ascent - 'The Crowley Route' HS 1893
The long-standing rumour that climbing terrorists planned to blow up that sacred icon of British Climbing (and logo of the F&RCC), Napes Needle, in the 1950s is, one suspects, a bit of a climbers' urban myth. I've heard it in various forms over the years from different sources who all claim different people were on the verge of doing it. It probably dates from the immediate post-war period as a form of sublimated resentment against the perceived (but actually completely unjustified) elitism of the FRCC. The most plausible source for the origins of the story I've seen names an unwitting Paul Ross, rather than Dennis Gray, as the alleged perpetrator.
While drinking in Keswick’s George Hotel one night, Ross is alleged to have suggested in jest what a good wheeze it would be to blow up the Needle, as a kind of ‘two-fingers up to the Toffs’ gesture to what the Young Guns considered the local Climbing Establishment. Unfortunately he was overheard by a local quarry worker who shared similar anarchist sentiments and a few nights later, when Ross was back in the pub the quarryman rushed in saying, ‘I’ve got it!’. When Ross said ‘Got what?’ he was ushered to the Gents and there, in a plastic shopping bag, were six sticks of dynamite. As is the case with bar room yarns, the story became embellished into a serious intent in the re-telling over the months and years but, rather amusingly, the chief suspect evolved, by a process of Chinese Whispers, into Ross's innocent contemporary Peter Greenwood. As a result of the rumour mill he was apparently regarded with grave suspicion by some FRCC members for some time afterwards, much to his perplexity.