Richard McElligott, UKC user RichardMc, died a few days ago. He had been suffering from brain cancer for some time. His recent posts
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/info/search.php?forum=0&dates=1&na... touch on this subject with a marked absence of self-pity (and a touching degeneration in orthography).
Richard will not have been personally known to many on here because he moved to Dunedin some years ago when his marriage broke down. Prior to that, however, he was a great stalwart of the London Mountaineering Club; one of those who devote endless hours to administration to permit the enjoyment of others, usually underappreciated and unsung. He especially loved the LMC's hut Fronwydyr above Nant Peris.
He was a steady and dependable climber at about E2, and a cheerful and dependable partner at all times on the crag or the hill. I remember particularly a fruitless and frustrating afternoon spent, at my suggestion, first trying to find Gideon (and failing even to access the correct quarry), and then trying to find Harris' Arete (again my project), and failing I suspect to locate even the correct mountainside although falling into a good many heather-covered holes. Not many would have remained so good-tempered. But also doing Falcon while it snowed, plummeting into the boulders after a hold snapped on Oxtail Soup on Lundy and struggling up the back of the zawn with his assistance, Richard's unvarying routine at the old Mile End, his thirty-foot fall off Regent Street and his rueful accounts of it, the two of us being doused by the sea at the bottom of Chair Ladder - the typical ups and downs of days out on the British crags, in fact. I should also mention his successful campaign to climb 60 E points in his sixtieth year (something which seems a greater feat to me now than it did then, especially when hampered by some fiercely restrictive ethical rules), and his habit of 'saving' routes until he could do them properly. He'll never do Right Wall now, alas, but he enjoyed the dream.
RIP, Richard, and thanks for the memories.
jcm
