After doing Brant Direct we abseiled down and then did Spectre. I remember it being a blisteringly hot day. The large party in front of us (very slow) on Spectre had this huge two gallon polythene water bottle with them on the first ledge.
This is really just a record shot, showing the excruciating way we used to abseil (there were no descendeurs then) with the rope running over the shoulder. You had to be very careful not to get rope burns. It's just possible to see that, although we had no harness, just hemp waistlines, John has rigged a tape sit harness.
Although we had my father's Leica with us, we took extremely few pictures that holiday - we were much more interested in climbing!

Love all the detail Gordon. I remember using these techniques in 1975 when I started.

With a classic abseil like this, using just a krab attached to a sling round your thighs, you had to be very careful not to get rope burns on your neck. Here we were wearing thick cotton shirts with the collar turned up. Even on a short ab like this it would still get very hot.

This was Gordon's first HVS lead, about three weeks after we led our first V. Diffs. From my diary: "A jump up in standard on the strength of yesterdays's form [doing classic VS's]. On Brant Direct our lack of suitable runners meant Gordon was very badly protected". I think Gordon got one runner on about 2/3 of the way up. which feel off. That would explain why the I (the second) am not exactly loaded down with climbing gear in this picture.

In the early sixties we wore flat caps and when doing such an abseil I would tuck my cap under my shirt on my left shoulder - a trick I learned from Ron James.