UKC

I just met the first ascentionist of this:
Barney Rubble (VS 4c)* in the pub (late shift work finish, rare chance to grab quick pint in the local while family's at the inlaws)

Unassuming guy, extremely pleasant and very very interesting, seen him once or twice before, never really chatted, never knew he'd ever climbed. He gave it up 35 years ago.

Old mate of Tony Howard's, with tales of things done in youth, locally, Lofoten, elsewhere, that eclipse anything I dream of achieving now.

Anyone else been randomly surprised and inspired by a dark horse former wad?



*link not representative of the man's actual caliber, but all I know of in the logbooks.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
i was in Hathersage a few weeks ago enjoying a coffee outside Colemans bistro when Johnny Dawes met Birdie num num, i know Johnny was a little starstruck by the meeting.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I've bumped into a few but I'm not sure if they meet your criteria of "dark horse". I have crossed paths with Tim Emmett a few times. He went to Uni at the same time I did, we bumped into each other at the base of Savage Slit (he was doing "Bulgy" I think) and slightly more bizarely, he married a girl from Swift Current in Saskatchewan.

I asked Andy Kirkpatrick to come and do a lecture in Inverness if I organised it and remarkably he agreed and we donated all the funds, except for some expenses, to the local MRT.

I was walking down off Ben Nevis after my friend had slipped crossing the stream and broke his wrist. He was with his girlfriend at the time so we were a threesome. Coming up was a group of lads who had a spare team member so we hooked up. The spare team member was Nial Grimes and I think we ended up doing Green Gulley and Number 3 gulley buttress. At the top of the second climb we sat talking to Al Hinkes.

Back in the UK I had a regular climbing partner called Jim Hall. There was (is) another more famous climber called Jim Hall but when my friend was asked if he was THE Jim Hall he always replied "of course". TBF, my friend Jim was actually the true dark horse of the climbing world and one of the most prolific and persistent climbers I know.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Chatting with a posh bloke before Jura Fell race, turns out it was Mick Fowler, afterwards he was talking to me all night about how impressed he was at my running.. I was like 'you are Mick Fowler'.. he made fell running sound more extreme than the constant epic shit he'd done.

Super impressive down to earth guy. He was timed out in the race so went out the next morning and ran the route again..

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Met Tommy Caldwell in Chamonix. Was planning to do the Frendo Spur the next day and my partner had forgotten his bivvy bag, so I asked Tommy if he had one spare. He did not.

True story.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
I met Catherine Destivelle who was lovely, also George Band a few times who was a nice bloke.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

In the late seventies, I was queueing in La Postale in Chamonix, and turned round to see where the smell was coming from. Immediately behind me was Gaston Rebuffat, avec pipe.

In reply to Fredt:

Excellent 😀

In reply to Just Another Dave:

End of August this year I was on a family holiday in Pembroke (no climbing allowed ) but said we'll go for a walk along the cliff tops - saw a climber topping out and thought I'd just go over and say hi, as I got closer I thought I recognise you - " Hello Mark " he said. "Hi Caff" - a week later I'm in the Millstone pub having a beer, and who should walk in ...... Hi Caff, you've gotta give it up ". Totally legendary stalker

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Mick Fowler regularly runs at a small race that I marshal at, Wardle Skyline. Very unassuming guy and based on his fell running ability, you would never guess that he is one of the worlds great mountaineers. I suspect I was the only person at any of the races who realised he was anything other than a middle aged mid packer.

In reply to Ciderslider:

Staying at the CIC Hut one weekend. Rab Carrington, Brian Hall and Jim Curran pop in while filming The Bat and ask if we mind if they can shoot a few scenes inside the hut. I believe they were denied use of the hut by SMC (even though it was empty all week before our gang arrived). My mate's tin mug makes a cameo appearance in the film!
Same venue some years later and Mal Duff wandered in with some clients.
Pub in Rose Street opposite Tiso's, Mal was sitting at the bar supping a beer. I'd spoken to him a couple of weeks previously at a lecture he gave in Stirling. Bought him a beer.
Drank coffee in same caff at the Coe whilst Hamish MacInnes was at another table. Does that count?

In reply to Removed User:
>Back in the UK I had a regular climbing partner called Jim Hall. There was (is) another more famous climber called Jim Hall but when my friend was asked if he was THE Jim Hall he always replied "of course". TBF, my friend Jim was actually the true dark horse of the climbing world and one of the most prolific and persistent climbers I know.

Agreed Faither aka the silver fox has been out and about! He IS a true dark horse legend!

In reply to Just Another Dave:

In 1970 on the South Ridge of the Noire we encountered Rene Desmaison guiding.

We helped his client particularly on the Grade Vl traverse which I think is a problem for guides (Lionel Terray has an amusing anecdote in Conquistadors of the Useless).

In return he guided us all down in the dark so no bivi for us but my last memory of Rene was extracting his Pied d'Elephant and bivouacking outside the hut.

A true "hard man".

In reply to The New NickB:


Love the back-handed compliment there.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Met Dave Birkett at Brimham Rocks a couple of years back. Was wandering about the boulders and heard his distinctive tones from round the corner. He was bouldering with his partner. Went and said hello and got obligatory photo - was a very friendly chap!

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Oh and my brother knocked John Dunn in the side of the head with the butt of a pool cue in the Foundry cafe once when we were kids (many years ago!)

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Thought for a moment someone was going to say they had met Joe Wilson.Not seen for years.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Climbing is such a small world that even a complete bumbly like me has run into "legends" all over the place.

Just a few:

- Met Kurt Diemberger and Martin Boysen at the opening party for Evolution Climbing Wall near Tunbridge Wells. Kurt handed me a plateful of roast hog and we chatted for a while. Interesting bloke, and very unassuming.

- Encountered Jim Curran a number of times on Sandstone and at Southern Sandstone Climbers' parties...most memorably at a fancy dress one a few years back where you had to dress as the name of a climb, and he arrived wrapped up in a big Cardboard Box. And at Buzzard's funeral of course.

- Had a chat with Joe Brown back in, oh, around 2000 when I was gearing up for Crackstone Rib and he ambled up and smoothly knocked off Shadow Wall nearby: "Are you Joe Brown?"..."Yes"... short chat, then we set off to climb. From my 16 year old second: "Who's Joe Brown? He's making that look easy for an old bloke"!!!

- Organised a talk from Stephen Venables in Sevenoaks which filled the Stag Theatre....later encountered him at the start of Hargreaves Original at Stanage, where he remembered me as "the bloke with that amazing dual projector that did a fabulous "dissolve" between slides"....then ran into him again at our club's (then ) annual New Years' Day Chimney Climb at High Rocks where he was self-belaying routes alone. We invited him to join us and although the rest of us were dressed mainly in boiler suits (winter chimney climbing on sandstone is NOT clean) he mucked in (literally) and joined us in the pub afterwards, again remarking on the projector I'd supplied for his talk. So although I may not have made a big impression on him personally, the projector I supplied certainly did!

- A highlight encounter was winning a UKC competition where the prize was an afternoon's ice climbing tuition from Tim Emmet AND Neil Gresham, where the other person I was training alongside was Jake Meyer, who went on to become for a while the youngest Brit to climb Everest. Not exactly a random encounter, but I've since run into Mr Gresham a number of times on sandstone, and a nicer bloke you couldn't hope to meet.

- Met Johnny Dawes a couple of years ago at one of the annual Sandstone Open Meetings. He was introduced to me by someone just as "my friend Johnny", to which I replied "nice to meet you Mr Dawes". She seemed a bit put out that I'd recognised him!

Had many other encounters with "legends", some more random than others, the above being just a small sample.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Charlton Chestwig empties my bins now see him most weeks

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Ran into Royal Robbins once as we were coming down and he was walking up Half Dome in persistent rain. He asked us what we'd done and we were ashamed to say "failed on Regular Route"

In reply to French Erick:


Send him my regards when you see him.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
While climbing on Stoney Middleton in the 70's we struggled on the first pitch of Gabriel. A corner led to a protection peg and a tricky move right. Several of us tried it and failed when along comes a group of 3 climbers one of whom greeted a guy in our group with a cheery 'Hello Nigel - mind if we go through?' Nigel nodded and they proceeded to solo the route. At the hard move the first climber breezed up it by leading with his left foot on a good hold - we had all been leading with the right! After they were out of earshot we turned to Nigel and asked who was that? 'Rouse, Carrington & Birtles' he replied. We eventually cracked the climb with our celebrity Beta from Al Rouse.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Back in the 1980's I was at whatever the only limestone crag in Yorkshire is, which is a nice slab and not seriously steep. I was halfway up a climb and not sure which way to go. A nice chap in a sweater on the route next to me told me where it went. When my second arrived he told me it was Allan Austin, who had made the first ascent of most of the routes on the crag. I should have worked it out from the sweater!

In reply to Just Another Dave:

We'd just started to walk up to Stanage from the Plantation car park and, not being at all familiar with the crag, stopped to have a look at the guidebook to try and pick out a few landmarks. Struggling a bit, I said to my partner, 'We'll ask this guy who's running down, see if he knows where we are.'

Said chap kindly stopped and took the guidebook and rattled-off all the buttress names and loads of routes, pointing everything out with, I noticed, gnarly fingers attached to massive hands. This caused me to take a closer look at him and, upon seeing the tousled hair and moustache adorning his thin face, couldn't help blurting, 'You're Ron Fawcett!'

'Unfortunately I am,' he laughed in reply. 'Have a nice day climbing.' He then ran on down the track, leaving me a bit starstruck ('I've actually seen Ron Fawcett!') but it really gave me a bit of a boost that day - I may have got up to VS.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I see Steve McClure quite a lot when climbing at awesome walls and the climbing works,never had the balls to talk to him though,if you climb indoors enough in Sheffield though you will drop on many modern climbing stars,even saw Alex megos at awesome once,seen the wide boyz and Shauna coxsey loads too.i don't know if any of these count though.obviously when climbing at tremadog you can meet to the legend that is Eric jones,one of the nicest guys around and someone who has done more than I can even dream about.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
I walked next to Walter Bonatti for a brief while in Chamonix a few years ago. Does that count?
When I was a relatively new climber, living on the Northeast of the US, there was a local hardman named Tom Yandon. My also new-to-climbing friend (Nik) and I were skiing in to an ice climb in the Adirondacks. Nik skied down a little steep pitch and face planted at the bottom. Skis and gear everywhere. Tom Yandon glides by going the other direction and my buddy Nik looks up from his face plant and says "You're Tom Yandon!" I'm not sure Tom even knew where the voice was coming from...

In reply to Just Another Dave:

As part of my undergrad training about 10 years ago, I spent 5 weeks in the Isle of Mann. Had a blast of a time seeing the TT amongst other things.
With a fellow student, did a bit of exploring of the islands climbing venues and bumped into a resident and his sidekick (hello Beef) who were friendly and happy to yarn. Invited us to a couple of cracking venues and generally had a great time.
Turns out it was Doug Hall...

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Met Johnny Dawes at Froggatt. Not unusual in its own right. He did call me weird which I thought was a great compliment from him.

I had told him that me and my long time climbing partner aspired to be Dawes and Moffatt. Only trouble was we climbed like George Dawes and Little Miss Moffatt.

He then jokingly? said to my friend Wendy that she should get another climbing partner.

Great sport though, as he did sign his book, "From George's brother, Johnny".

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I remember a few years ago when the great Sir Christopher Boddington met me in the Bowderstone car park. He was a little shy, but I understood his reticence and beamed at him nevertheless.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I once had the pleasure of bumping into Ronnie Pickering at Gardoms Edge.

In reply to Just Another Dave: stood next to Sherpa Tenzing in the Pen Y Gwrdd hotel urinal to be given the traditional sherpa greeting of 'do you mind stopping pissing down my leg?'

Pmc

In reply to Clauso:


Who ?

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Ed Drummond wandered up to me at Avon many moons ago and said "Hi, like to do a route?" So we did. I knew who he was of course, and I really enjoyed climbing with him.

In reply to Wsdconst:

Who?... RONNIE PICKERING!?!

In reply to baron:


That's not a Sherpa greeting. That's Sherpa code for "Fancy having a go at K2 next week?" You missed a great opportunity.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
Tenuous link here. I was on the Barbara Sparks (Link1) course in 1978 and on the same course the future Mrs Ratty was out climbing with Don Roscoe & Mick Pointon (Links 2 &3) when who should rock up and say hello but Joe Brown (Link 4). They all went for a cuppa at a cafe in Llanberis ( Not a link to Pete's Eats - he came only a few months later). She was awarded her Tea-Drinkers badge by Joe & Don!

In reply to Clauso:

Did he challenge you to a bare knuckle fight ? Who won ?

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I helped Hamish MacInnes carry a cast iron stove up to his cabin on the Torridon coast near Diabaig when I was about 10, I slipped on a wet rock and mashed my head and leg on barnacles. Not technically a random encounter as he was the next door neighbour, sort of, his cabin was about a mile round the coast.

In reply to The New NickB:
Also through fell running I met Ron Fawcett a fair number of times, very impressive guy. Very fit guy even as a vet whatever he is..

In reply to Roadrunner5:

In Yosemite last year a very enthusiadtic, small blonde lass appeared on our campsite and during the evening asked for ideas on a few shorter routes to do. I suggested a few of the fairly bumbly lines we'd done. During the night I woke up and had a rather sheepish eureka moment when I realised that I had just advised Kitty Calhoun to climb such easy routes.

2 days later walking into Curry Village I was greeted from a distance with a loud " yo Tim dude". It was Kitty, she had climbed a few of my suggested routes and wanted to thank me for the tips

One of the nicest and most down to earth people I've ever met.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I was once playing the cello next to Princess Diana; she was standing so close that I couldn't use the hair nearest the heel of my bow for fear of stabbing her with the tip

In reply to bpmclimb:

Euphemism?

In reply to jon:

Couldn't possibly comment.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I was leading Vampire Direct at Polldubh in the mid-seventies. This was before E-grades were invented and anyway, the SMC didn't grade above VS then.
I noticed John Cunningham bringing some students up a route nearby and asked him if I was on the right route. He said yes.
After a pause he said "Of course, VS can mean anything in Scotland. I could be Extreme 5c".
"Yes I know that", I said. "What would you say this was, out of interest?"

Another pause.

"That's VS. In Scotland."

In reply to jon:

Euphemism?

No, bpm was playing a stringed instrument, not a brass wind one...

I was once belaying a mate on Robin Hoods Cave Innominate / Harding's Finish when a old guy wandering along the base of the crag started talking to me, "I haven't been up here for over 20 years" he said, and continued to talk about how he used to come from Manchester to the Peak every weekend on his motorbike with Joe Brown and Don Whillains. He said Joe was the best climber he's ever seen and in his peak would be as good as any of the top guys around today. I never got his name

In reply to mark20:


Probably Joe Brown

In reply to Just Another Dave:

About 33 years ago I walked into a pub in a smal village in Northumberland and bumped into Eric Burdon sitting at the bar - not sure if he's ever done anything on grit though....

In reply to Just Another Dave:
Parked at walna scar road early one morning heading for Dow.

At the top of the scar road near the shelter this wiry bloke with brown legs and shorts asks if weve seen two lads in the car park. "When I say lads I mean ones 74 the other is 68" he says. We say weve seen no one. He walks with us for half an hour and we chat about the Bob Graham and other challenges.

"Does Jos Naylor still run ?" I ask..

"I hope so" he says, " I am Jos Naylor"

Ooops. Lovely chap, he was most interested in the two collies we had with us and we just chatted about the hills before he headed off in his usual bent style over to Great Carrs.

In reply to birdie num num:

>"I remember a few years ago when the great Sir Christopher Boddington met me in the Bowderstone car park. He was a little shy, but I understood his reticence and beamed at him nevertheless."

It is the great Sir Christian Bonnington

In reply to Just Another Dave:

When hitching to the Ben for our first ever winter climbing trip we got a lift with a fella in his mid fifties who 'had done a bit of climbing on the Ben'. He invited us in for a cup of tea before we continued but we turned him down because we wanted to get on with it.

Never really forgiven myself for turning down a brew at Jimmy Marshalls house...

In reply to HammondR:


Hook, line and sinker!

(Without the double 'n' if you hadn't been had!)

In reply to Just Another Dave:

An early morning in the mid 90s, I pulled in to the parking lot at Wild Iris in Wyoming. To get ready for the day, I decided to use the port-a-loo which appeared to be available. I opened the door only to find Yosemite legend Jim Bridwell taking a dump.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
My mate had the boil on his left testicle lanced by Tom Patey. Following this epic meeting my climbing has been inspired ever since.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Walked in to Cloggy and saw someone attempting Indian Face (on lead) before downclimbing the bottom 40 or 50'. Turned out to be Neil Gresham practising a few days before his ascent.

Saw a video on a giant screen in Courmayeur of Christophe Profit on his winter trilogy, explained to my wife who he was and then a couple of days later ended up coming down in the telepherique with him from the Auiguille du Midi.

Climbed Main Wall (on Cyrn Las) on a very quiet midweek day about 5 years ago. Thought we had the crag to ourselves until we were walking back down when we heard a rattle on the scree above us. Turned round to see Eric Jones running down having just soloed the route behind us. Already well into his seventies by then!

In reply to Just Another Dave:

At the moment, the best value legend encounter to be had is being served pizza from the mobile wood fired pizza van at the ClimbingWorks on Wednesday nights by Johnny Dawes.
The one that I enjoyed the most was meeting Peter Harding at Cratcliffe in the early eighties. After I brought up my climbing buddy (think it was Five Finger Exercise), we sat for about half an hour with him just chatting about climbing which was absolutely priceless.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

What a sad reflection on climbing this thread is.

Climbers appear to be as celebrity obsessed as prosecco sipping x factor screamers.

"I went to a crag once and I met another climber"

In reply to Prof. Outdoors:


Johnny Dawes called you weird ? Jesus Christ, how weird are you ?

In reply to 3leggeddog:


It's fun, occasionally meeting well-known people, adds something different to the day. Nobody on here sounds at all obsessed to me. A thread about it is just a bit of harmless fun, isn't it?

In reply to 3leggeddog:

Yeah.... I sort of anticipated this after I'd started it.

I had been struck by the surprise and delight of genuinely not knowing who someone was, and having it unearthed like an archeology dig from under layers of shrouded humility and reticence.

I could also have just said "I met Dawes / Grimes / Bentley / Gresham / Randall / Whittaker / Houlding ..." But I hadn't thought that ought to be interesting to anyone else.

In reply to 3leggeddog:




I'm a real hardcore groupie...I've been to Dennis Gray's house!

In reply to 3leggeddog:




The saddest reflection surely has to be the fact that you felt compelled to write such a response?

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Walked into Awesome walls a few years ago (2010 i think) and said to the young girl behind the desk "That there is Alan Burgess" - of course she had this look of bewilderment on her face and no idea what i was talking about. I walked up to him and said "Hi Al, you probably don't remember me but i met you up at Kangchenjunga base camp back in 1998" His reply, oh yes, you were hiking with a girl and a local guide" To which i replied, "it was after meeting you i decided to get into climbing", he looked a little embarrassed !
On return to Kathmandu we did end up having 2 nights on the beer in Thamel - and no brawling !!!

In reply to Just Another Dave:
I think the best thing is that current climbers have a real connection with the past and respect and appreciate climbing legends enough to still be awestruck.

I've always thought climbing is a pretty unique sport where you can be enjoying it next door to the best in the world.

In the 80's I was once leading a Hard Severe on Gogarth while Catherine Destivelle led the E5 next door on the International Womens Meet. I felt humbled but also pretty excited and motivated. Nothing X Factor about that.

In reply to Babika:



I think this is true, I've met hundreds of the worlds greatest climbers, and climbed with many of them, but I'll never forget meeting Joe Brown in the bogs in the Padarn when I was a teen, we pissed silently next to each other, I in Awe,
Joe said 'It's ace pissing here when you can talk to your mates in the street' (you could then in the Padarn) I've never forgotten that and now I am mates with Joe. I think that the generations in climbers are so long lived that if you stick at it you will just about meet everybody. But that meeting with Joe is still the one I treasure.

In reply to 3leggeddog:




Haven't you got over our chance meeting yet? I can only apologise again that I just didn't recognise you......

In reply to bpmclimb:
We once took Princess Di climbing at fraggle rock, Majorca. She even managed a 7B up the centre of the crag, not bad for her first route ever.

Check the Burnley team group photo
https://ukc2.com/i/187681.jpg
https://ukc2.com/i/187682.jpg

In reply to Al Evans:

I went into the bogs in the Padarn when I was a teen, then Brown turned up next to me. All I could think was 'I'm pi$$ing next to Joe Brown' and I dried up completely!

In reply to Seymore Butt:

She always was an anorexic weirdo.

In reply to Al Evans:

You let me hold your rope a while back....: )

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

But she hung out with the Burnley boys...

Mick

In reply to Al Evans:

It's an odd connection - being quite surprised when chucking boulders off a new route at Hoy to hear someone shout and meeting you, being all excited about doing a problem at the Mile End wall that a local I kind of recognised was trying and being told "Yeah, but he has a few less toes than you....", Stephen Venables topped out on Everest the first day I ever went climbing. Heaps of other happenstance meetings with "famous" climbers, even when not climbing - realising I had a photo on the wall of my bedroom of the guy wanting the sub let my flat being particularly embarrassing..... it was actually the very cool pics of the Mucklehouse wall in Hoy and not actually Dave Turnbull that they were up there, honest!
Even after not climbing for years, there's still weird connections - pulling a disintegrating pair of Koflachs out of the shed 6 months ago and then reading Eric Jones' biography - I'd bough them off him after he came back from his second go on Everest in the mid 90's. I think it is one of the nice things in climbing is that you can meet folk that you think "F**k me, they've done X route/mountain" and they're generally sound and keen to talk climbing, or do a route with you, even if it's a stack of grades less than they're capable of. Can't think of many I've met that have been precious about it.

In reply to Deri Jones:

Like.
Best reply.
Poignant moments, nice.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

I remember me and mate in 2006 camping my the CIC hut on the Ben in summer - finally seeing it open and gaining access - we met two climbers one older, one younger - we were 16 and just been climbing for 6 weeks over the summer so quite excited.

We were chatting about all the routes we had done - then these two guys started to list off a series of mega hard routes E8 / E9 type stuff (we were excited about having done the Long Climb VS) - turned out it was Dave McCloud and Dave Cuthbertson working on some mega hard line.

Best advice I ever got - you never get strong just trad climbing so make sure you boulder and sport climb - that's been my training plan ever since ......

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Back in the 70's I'd just moved to Penrith from Tyneside, and had not met up with any of the local climbers, so took myself off to Borrowdale for the afternoon, hoping to find someone to take me up a route or two. I was wandering round the bottom of Shepherds when this funny little dog comes over sniffing round my sack, followed by a guy wearing a battered pair of walking boots. Seeing my looking at the guidebook on my own he asked if I climbed and if I had a rope. Most of my climbing had been done on outdcrops so only had a 100 ft length of #3 hawser laid nylon rope plus my harness and a couple of slings. He asked what I'd climbed and I said that I led severe, so he said he knew a nice route to do. He tied on directly, took the slings, and set off up the crag. After a short first pitch, he set off up a steep wall. He placed one runner on a tree about halfway up, and as he approached the top of the route, he asked me to start climbing, as he could not reach the top. I was about 20 ft off the ledge and on 4c moves before he topped out, and reached the belay. That was my introduction to Adam and the inimitable original 'Jaws of Borrowdale'.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

A couple of years back me and a mate took Johnny Dawes for a pint in our local after one of his coaching sessions at Alter Rock in Derby. Spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with him talking bollocks, as you do.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Ah yes, The Padarn. It was difficult in the 60's not to meet someone famous there. I once sat next to Don Whillans while watching Joe Brown play darts. But one of my closest encounters was when a friend suggested we climb at Gogarth (late 1970's I think) when I was struggling to lead VS. He said that we could meet up with one of his mates there. John Redhead turned up and suggested The Strand. I demurred....I did however have a T shirt made up saying that 'I nearly climbed with John Redhead'. I was younger and more impressionable then. John was really nice though.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

Small world climbing; I must have bumped into 20 or 30 "legends" over the years and have been pleasantly surprised by how friendly and down to earth most of them have been. Some of my most enduring memories?

Meeting the evergreen Angela Soper, effortlessly lapping some highballs, at Slipstones; when my son was about 6 or 7 years old. The sprog was getting a bit fed up with proceedings and starting to whinge so, instead of taking umbrage about the distraction, Angela took him off for a spot of foraging. The pair of them returned about an hour later with big grins and and even bigger black rings around their mouths; after feasting on the billberries growing beneath the crag.

Being pointed at my first E4 Wings of Unreason (E4 6a), by Andi Turner, during a day on the Skyline and then cruising it. Yes, it's a soft touch, for lanky gets, but being told I could do it (by a local legend) gave me the confidence to have a go. I then sat in a hole in the track, about 30 yards back from the edge, to belay him up the route while he stripped the gear for me; even though he must have soloed it many times before. I've bumped into Andi on other occasions, since then, and he always seems so willing to share his psyche for climbing.

Sharing a smoke and a chat on a belay with "Caff", whilst he and Emma Twyford were climbing Impact Day (E8 6c) and me and little bro' were climbing Astra (E2 5c); giving us the opportunity to witness 2 smooth ascents of a properly hard route at close quarters. The thing that still tickles me was being burnt off by Emma on the walk in. She was carrying a pack that was bigger than she is, with twin ropes on top of it, whilst me and little bro' puffed and panted our way up the hill under our half racks and split ropes. On reaching the base of Pavey Ark, Emma asked if we were looking for Jack's Rake (Grade-1) and pointed us in the right direction; we must have looked the part on that day

Having some old gadge offering to second me on the diect start to Cracked Actor (E2 5c) E3ish; after Ms Plum discovered that it was still a bit beyond her. As he cruised up the route, showing no sign of strain, I thought "he's moving well for an old boy". The "old boy" turned out to be Rob Matheson; hardly living up to his Angry Pensioner image.

In order to save the blushes of Ms Plum, I will save my "Mooning Tom Randall" story for another occasion; even though I still can't think of it without a slight giggle.

I hope this isn't too "Kardashians" for the critics and if it is fcuk 'em.

Good night all.

In reply to Just Another Dave:
Meeting Whillans shortly after a talk he'd given at Rochdale Art gallery in 1966.

In the lift in Manchester with Bonington on the way to his Annapurna lecture. The lift doors had almost shut when they were prised open and we all had to squeeze up for the man himself.

Meeting Ed Drummond on Stoney. I was gripped concentrating on the last pitch of Alcassan when I heard a shout and there he was soloeing down to us. I can"t remember what he wanted, and initially didn't know who it was until Mick asked why I hadn't spoken to Drummond.

Playing darts in the Padarn in 60's when Brown et al arrived and wanted a game.

In reply to 3leggeddog:

Most enjoyable thread I've read for a while, full of charm, heritage, love and a sense both of community and history.
Thanks for all the stories.

Why the bitter tone?

"I went to a crag once and didn't meet another climber"?

In reply to BrendanO:

Not a bitter at all many of the folk who posted here will happily deride celebrity culture when it suits them, which is one of the points I was trying to make.

The other point is that it is hardly unusual to meet another climber at a crag, famous or not.

The thread suffers from the usual "met Charlton chestwig, really nice bloke" comments. Now Charlton as we all know was a right royal Berkshire but because he was famous all those who said hi to him thought he was great.

In reply to Just Another Dave:

in the early 90's Roger Payne's lady.. Julie-Ann...was doing climbing classes for lasses at Macclesfield Climbing wall ( honest!)..a wee while after, when the plebs were let back in..a bloke came in looking for Roger and Julie-Ann..looked interested and then got sandbagged by the Macc hardcore...wearing his trainers...Andi Pollitt...was all fun until someone said..why are you known as mr second ascent???

In reply to Just Another Dave:
As Al said earlier, when you have been in the 'ring' for 50+years you do get to meet an awful lot of well known faces from the climbing world.
But my first encounter is still fresh in my mind. I was just a wimp of a grammar school toerag fortunate to be awarded the years' prize for Geography and the guest speaker for that particular year was Wilf Noyce, shortly to tragically die in the Pamirs along with Robin Smith. Afterwards at the reception for proud parents and prizewinners in the school library I went up to Wilf (mostly ignored by other pupils and parents), and said that I had just started climbing in the hills. He wished me well. I also recall that during his speech to the school, he was either very nervous or perhaps it was just him. but he seemed to 'err...' after every few words. Not what I expected from a poet and writer. However, I can't recall the name or profession of any of the other august guest speakers on other years 'Speech Days' so he obviously made the right impression on me!