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It would be 1978 I think? I was in a pub called The Pineapple on Water Street, on the border of Salford and Manchester.
I was enjoying a few lunchtime beers with work colleagues, on one side of the horseshoe shaped bar.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him walk into the other side of the bar.
He was short and fat, dressed in a grubby blue boiler suit and carrying a bag of tools.
I recognise him immediately.
After a while, I plucked up the courage, and like a nervous groupie at a gig, I made my way tentatively round to where he sat on a bar stool, staring into a freshly pulled pint while he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
As I approached him, he turned his head in my direction. I braced myself for the menacing, sarcastic one liner and terse dismissal. To my surprise and relief, it never came.
I forget exactly my opening line, but it was undoubtedly clumsy, awkward and pathetic, yet he was still gracious.
Slowly, a stilted conversation began. I offered him a drink, but he refused, and instead, bought me one.
Gradually I became more at ease in his company. He talked about a recent trip to Africa and the huge potential at a place called Hells Gate Gorge. I asked him about some of his routes both in the UK, Alps and Himalayas.
I was struck by how he seemed to view climbing the same as a job. That the difficulty and technicalities of a line were the equivalent of an engineering problem. Finding the most efficient way to solve the problem in a pragmatic and logical way.
Yet despite this somewhat sterile approach, it was clear that he had huge affection for, and appreciation of the beauty of the mountain landscape.
We talked for about two hours, just me and him sat at the bar.
He was open, charming and witty, and treated this young star struck lad and his awkward bumbling, with warmth, patience and generosity.
And then, with a smile and a handshake, he stood up, fastened his boiler suit, picked up his bag of tools and left.
As the door closed behind him, I smiled to myself.
I had just spent two hours chatting to one of the great legends - an icon - of British climbing. A man who's infamous reputation entered the room about five minutes before he did. A man who was one half of one of the most revered climbing partnership's in our sports history. A man woven into the folklore of climbing like some dark mythical warrior.
And, he was a man who turned out to be nothing like what I expected. A man who was in fact, full of surprises.
I had just spent a couple of hours with Don Whillans.
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In reply to Goucho:
Great post - thanks
I guessed it was Whillans about halfway down
I really like "with a smile and a handshake" in your post
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In reply to Goucho:
What a great post and story. A friend of mine also met Don Whillans and found him exactly as you describe him.
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In reply to SimonCRMC:
My mate and I once got chatting to him at a climbers' New Year's Eve do in a pub in New Mills. He was getting on a bit, and told us he was getting more and more pissed off and bored with young "hard men" and hot shots wanting you fight or arm wrestle him. I for one was sad when I learnt of his death while we were en route to Chamonix.
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In reply to duncan b:
I think it's more the 'when' than the 'where'.
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In reply to Goucho:I am so confused as to why you have brought this up again, the thread about this guy was closed down 13 years ago. Are you trying to start it again. He died in 1985. There is no way he was walking around Salford in a boiler suit carrying a bag of tools . Sitting in a pub drinking pint after pint is more the guy I knew.
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In reply to Goucho:
> It would be 1978 I think? I was in a pub called The Pineapple on Water Street, on the border of Salford and Manchester.
> I was enjoying a few lunchtime beers with work colleagues, on one side of the horseshoe shaped bar.
> Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him walk into the other side of the bar.
> He was short and fat, dressed in a grubby blue boiler suit and carrying a bag of tools.
> I recognise him immediately.
> After a while, I plucked up the courage, and like a nervous groupie at a gig, I made my way tentatively round to where he sat on a bar stool, staring into a freshly pulled pint while he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
> As I approached him, he turned his head in my direction. I braced myself for the menacing, sarcastic one liner and terse dismissal. To my surprise and relief, it never came.
> I forget exactly my opening line, but it was undoubtedly clumsy, awkward and pathetic, yet he was still gracious.
> Slowly, a stilted conversation began. I offered him a drink, but he refused, and instead, bought me one.
> Gradually I became more at ease in his company. He talked about a recent trip to Africa and the huge potential at a place called Hells Gate Gorge. I asked him about some of his routes both in the UK, Alps and Himalayas.
> I was struck by how he seemed to view climbing the same as a job. That the difficulty and technicalities of a line were the equivalent of an engineering problem. Finding the most efficient way to solve the problem in a pragmatic and logical way.
> Yet despite this somewhat sterile approach, it was clear that he had huge affection for, and appreciation of the beauty of the mountain landscape.
> We talked for about two hours, just me and him sat at the bar.
> He was open, charming and witty, and treated this young star struck lad and his awkward bumbling, with warmth, patience and generosity.
> And then, with a smile and a handshake, he stood up, fastened his boiler suit, picked up his bag of tools and left.
> As the door closed behind him, I smiled to myself.
> I had just spent two hours chatting to one of the great legends - an icon - of British climbing. A man who's infamous reputation entered the room about five minutes before he did. A man who was one half of one of the most revered climbing partnership's in our sports history. A man woven into the folklore of climbing like some dark mythical warrior.
> And, he was a man who turned out to be nothing like what I expected. A man who was in fact, full of surprises.
> I had just spent a couple of hours with Don Whillans.
Really enjoyed this anecdote Goucho. Especially as you recount your experience of meeting him in such a warm and positive light.
Reminds me of the days I used to enjoy two hour lunch breaks (Friday afternoons) not too far away from where you were in the the Mark Addy.
Mind you I thought Don was off the tools by the time he got fat?
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In reply to Handsforfeet (and Climbingspike):
> Mind you I thought Don was off the tools by the time he got fat?
I thought so too, but no, in THE VILLAIN (page 307) it says Don in April 1977 "returned to his old trade and began to do emergency plumbing work all over north-west England, sleeping in a Volkswagen van"
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In reply to Climbingspike:
> I am so confused as to why you have brought this up again, the thread about this guy was closed down 13 years ago. Are you trying to start it again. He died in 1985. There is no way he was walking around Salford in a boiler suit carrying a bag of tools . Sitting in a pub drinking pint after pint is more the guy I knew.
If the thread shut thirteen years ago it's time to revisit...
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In reply to planetmarshall:
> > ...New Year's Eve do in a pub in New Mills.
> I'm sorry to hear that.
There's a reason why they built a bypass around Chapel, ya know?... The best thing about it used to be the road through it, and even that's now redundant.
... I love a bit of inter-Peak rivalry, me.
P.S. Yer darts teams are crap too.
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In reply to Clauso:
> There's a reason why they built a bypass around Chapel, ya know?... The best thing about it used to be the road through it, and even that's now redundant.
Haha, well I'm not actually that fond of Chapel. I live in Bankhall, where I am both physically and metaphorically above it...
> P.S. Yer darts teams are crap too.
I'll take your word for it.
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In reply to planetmarshall:I don't actually know that for a fact. I made it up... That sort of thing seems to work for Trump?
> P.S. Yer darts teams are crap too
> I'll take your word for it.
P.P.S He's from Chapel too.
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In reply to Goucho:
I played a few games of darts and shared a drink or two with both him and Jo him back in the late 60's early 70's in the Padarn. Because of his reputation we always felt a bit nervous. In fact, if you are monitoring this thread Keith, wasn't Whillans who you upset one night and he threatened to lamp you?
Al
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In reply to Mick Ward: I recently told a neighbour about how my friend got her rescue dog. The neighbour of the couple who used to abuse her, when drunk one night, went round to their flat and punched them both and rescued Tess from them, and my neighbour said it was 'the Barnsley way'.
I don't condone violence, but she's such a lovely and harmless dog, it's hard to think it was a bad chain of events...
Post edited at 18:56
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In reply to Mick Ward:
I remember two occasions when Keith was less than tactful and subsequently threatened with violence. One was this time in the Padarn, the other was Big John Con at Stoney.
Al
In reply to GridNorth:
> the other was Big John Con at Stoney.
John was always a quiet, jovial chap when we used to hang around down there.
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In reply to Goucho:
In the mid-1980s Jim Perrin wrote a wonderful article about climbing A Dream of White Horses with Whillans. Whillans called it a 'last ascent' and he was right, though not in the way he meant: within a few months, he was dead. If he was fit enough then to have climbed that, he would have been fit enough to work as a plumber in 1978.
In reply to GridNorth:
> I played a few games of darts and shared a drink or two with both him and Jo him back in the late 60's early 70's in the Padarn.
> Al
Me too Al. Just think - we probably played each other too. Our beautiful friendship might have blossomed earlier! You probably beat us and we sulked!
Those were t' days eh? It was a really shit pub but we all loved it and wouldn't dream of going to another, except maybe The Dolbadarn for a club dinner or summat. The crap pub theme was repeated all over - The Salutation in Ambleside; The Clachaig; come to think of it The ODG wasn't up to much either.They took more than their share of my mis-spent youth though!
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In reply to Martin Bennett:
> Those were t' days eh? It was a really shit pub but we all loved it and wouldn't dream of going to another, except maybe The Dolbadarn for a club dinner or summat. The crap pub theme was repeated all over - The Salutation in Ambleside; The Clachaig; come to think of it The ODG wasn't up to much either.They took more than their share of my mis-spent youth though!
Yes, I was always a Vaynol type myself, couldn't stand the Padarn and only ever went in with someone much more local - some of the Ceunant guys were well-connected and could provide safe passage for foreign students! Even the Douglas in Bethesda could be reasonably menacing unless you were there in numbers.
Actually, I found that most of the 'legendary' watering holes were a bit of a disappointment but maybe I had already missed their heyday. The Clachaig, the Bar Nash, the ODG, the PyG, none of them did it for me in the late 70s and 80s. The Moon was bearable, I suppose, but we mostly did day trips to the Peak so didn't spend too many Saturday nights in there.
The ones I have fondest memories of include the St Govan's Inn, the Hart in Hartland, the Port of Call, the Tinner's Arms and the Gurnard's Head (pre-gastro), which tells you a lot about where my true allegiances lie!
In reply to Dave Garnett:
Great post Goucho.
Used to drink at the Padarn in the late eighties, till one night when there was a lot of activity in the toilets, drug dealing I think, and someone put their fist through one of the stall doors, after that it was the Vaynol.
In reply to GridNorth:
Your Right Al he did threaten to lamp me but soon back down when he knew we were from Barnsley as Mick Ward says he must have been hard but not hard enough, Joking of coarse.
I was all to do with a painting of a Schooner hung up in the entrance of the hotel can't say no more.
keith s
Post edited at 10:31
In reply to BlownAway:
Yes Phil, Jon was Quiet Jovial chap and a good friend but we had our scuffles The 1st time he came at me OK I did call him a name I shouldn't have by mistake John Loy ran over and separated us and sent Jon Con out of the pub, when I went out he was waiting for me and came over and shook hands with me and hugged me .Was the Start of good friendship, until the next time we had a run in with each other, we always stayed good friends no matter what. Ah Loved the guy and all the good times we had.
keith s
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