In reply to UKC News:
Being a long way away from most things these days, it was only very recently that I discovered Emmett Goulding died some months ago. I'm guessing his name will be recognised by few, if any, on here but that's just the unfairness of history. Emmett was a kind of an Irish version of Joe Brown, marvellously talented. Certainly, back in the 1960s, he was the only Irish climber of international significance. He was my very first climbing hero and, through his example, I received my first lesson that how we conduct ourselves in life matters far more than what we achieve at the crag.
My guess is that Emmett had a pretty hard life. Certainly he had a hard death, through cancer. But at least he reached his late seventies. So many of my generation died in the 1970s and early 1980s, typically through super-alpinism and soloing. Their images are frozen in time, forever young. But when people such as Ian Vincent and Dave Pegg, from the next generation, die then the lesson is stark. Our time on this planet is startlingly ephemeral, a mere heartbeat of the universe.
When he was young, Dave was like a pixie. Even among the 1980s Sheffield hard-core (not many pies consumed), his body was almost wraith-like. A pixie's body. His face was a pixie's face. And his grin was unmistakably a pixie's grin. As with Al Rouse, you sensed that he was ridiculously brainy. Not that either Al or Dave gave out the faintest whiff of superiority; conversely both seemed delightfully dippy.
As with Al, there was a time when Dave seemed invincible on the crags, first ascents of E7 and E8 cropping up all over the place when these were cutting-edge grades. The iconic photo of him on the first ascent of MaDMAn at Wimberry, sport climbing without bolts, will probably never be bettered as a paean to the boldness of youth.
The US brought more success, an editorship with 'Climbing' magazine (I think they reckoned he was the first editor to climb 5.14/F8b+), lots and lots of hard climbing, the setting up of his own publishing firm, Wolverine. In his relatively short life, Dave accomplished a great deal. But of course it's how you feel about your accomplishments and - far more importantly - how you feel about your life which matters most. Sometimes life can seem infinitely precious; and sometimes it can seem downright unbearable.
You rearrange treasured memories, shuffle them into a mosaic. There's a memory of Dave that I keep coming back to again and again. One afternoon some dude was filming him bouldering in a cave at The Foundry. Typically Dave erupted from the back of the cave and exploded across the roof in an utterly convincing display of precision and power. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the footage was deemed to be not quite right – which, I guess, is par for the course with filming. So Dave got to do it again... and again... and again... and again. Strong though he undoubtedly was, that problem looked bloody hard and running all those laps on it was taking it out of him. Yet he persevered. Me, I'd have snuck in a few extra holds, along the way - but he was made of better stuff.
Finally he staggered out of the cave, totally wasted. And you just knew the cameraman was going to say, “Could we do it one more time...” Across the room our eyes met. I gave a helpless little shrug of commiseration. And suddenly Dave's face creased into his utterly enchanting pixie grin, a total, “What the hell!!!” Without even being asked, he got straight back on.
Dave, you will always be cherished by those who knew you.
Mick