That boy grew into a man and climbed many of the most stunning lines on Gritstone. His name, the one and only Johnny Dawes. Rumour has it that back in the day, Johnny could climb anything. His thirst to climb was so great that he did go on to climb anything....One of his more eclectic expressions was the Mancunian Way in Manchester. The problems Dawes climbed on these structures are the thing of legend and have drifted into the relms of myth and folklore...until now. Craig Smith was recently cleaning out his loft and came across some old slides from his time at University with Johnny and here for the first time you can see the Master in action on some of these structures which are concrete classics. (click on the photo up and left or here )

We'll ask Craig to post more.

Read more about Johnny at: www.johnnydawes.com