In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
There is also an obituary by Colin Wells in the Independent, to Colin's usual high standard
Peter Harding
Pioneer of extreme climbing who perfected the modern 'hand-jam' technique
Published: 30 October 2007
Peter Reginald James Harding, rock climber and engineer: born Blackpool, Lancashire 30 December 1924; married (one son, three daughters); died Dewsbury, Yorkshire 24 October 2007.
In the half-decade following the end of the Second World War, two contrasting men vied for the unofficial title of "Best British Rock Climber". In the Lake District, the undisputed star was Arthur Dolphin, who was tall and thin, almost to the point of emaciation, while among Welsh crags and northern English gritstone, it was the Derby engineer Peter Harding, who was thickset and solidly built, with very long arms.
Both men were intent on pioneering a new brand of "extreme climbing". But it was Harding who, as editor of the Llanberis climbers' guidebook of 1950, would define the new climbing, using the term "extremely severe" for the first time to describe the grade of these desperate new routes.
Like so many influential British rock climbers, Harding honed his skills on the gritstone of the Peak District, not far from his home in Derby. There, according to climbing myth, he "invented" the modern "hand-jam" – the art of using a clenched fist, or a bunch of fingers, in a crack, and flexing muscles to jam the hand against the sides and form a secure hold. In fact, Harding had more likely rediscovered a technique used by late 19th-century gritstone climbing pioneers. However, like most ideas of genius, the hand-jam, which seems so intuitively obvious to climbers today, was a concept of such simple sophistication that it took the type of analytical mind that Harding possessed to perfect it.
This was demonstrated by the time it took for many of his peers to catch on. Even after being shown the technique, many persisted with exhausting layback manoeuvres or, even worse, followed textbook suggestions of the day which advocated climbing vertical cracks by forcing fingers and palms onto opposing walls of the fissure as though trying to part heavy sliding doors. In the end, Harding resorted to stunts to prove the efficacy of his technique, holding a lit cigarette between his fingers while he jammed smoothly up fearsomely steep gritstone cracks.
Thus armed with his "secret weapon", plus the newly available ex-War Department karabiners and slings made from new-fangled nylon, Harding started testing the limits of their tolerance. He announced his arrival with his ascent of "Promontory Traverse" at Black Rocks near Cromford in 1945; at the time of his ascent it was one of the hardest routes led on gritstone.
Emboldened by his success at Black Rocks, Harding, with his fellow Derby climbing partner Tony Moulam, went on a route-bagging spree in North Wales, repeating most of the test-pieces of the era in nailed boots or, when it was raining, in socks. The young men were running considerable risks. Protection equipment was rudimentary to the point of insignificance. A fall could easily mean death and in 1946 Harding had a hair's-breadth escape while attempting to make the first repeat of what was then arguably the hardest climb in Britain, "Suicide Wall" in the Ogwen Valley."Some fair way up I made a silly mistake", he recalled.
continued at: http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3109914.ece