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RIP (Read 461389 times)

Falling Down

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#1000 Re: RIP
January 23, 2018, 10:31:28 pm
Ursula K. Le Guin.  Her Earthsea trilogy blew me away as a teenager...

 I still have the book bought many, many years ago and am going to take it to bed to read tonight.

jwi

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#1001 Re: RIP
January 23, 2018, 11:09:47 pm
I followed her blog, so her death doesn't come as a great surprise. She sounded ready.

Loved 70% of what she wrote, that's a better hit rate than pretty much any writer after Homer.

The other wind, The dispossessed, Left hand of Darkness, The word for world is forest, Voices and Powers being some of my favourites.

GraemeA

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#1002 Re: RIP
January 24, 2018, 08:30:10 pm
Mark E Smith.  :wavecry:

fried

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#1003 Re: RIP
January 24, 2018, 08:55:03 pm
No fucking way. That's ruined my evening..just the end

GraemeA

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#1004 Re: RIP
January 24, 2018, 09:51:24 pm
No fucking way. That's ruined my evening..just the end

Sorry. But turn on Radio 6, every other track if Fall related.

sxrxg

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#1005 Re: RIP
January 25, 2018, 08:13:41 pm
One for the skiers. Warren Miller, Ski Film Pioneer.

https://www.downdays.eu/articles/ski-film-colossus-warren-miller-dead-93/


lagerstarfish

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#1006 Re: RIP
January 25, 2018, 10:48:27 pm

andy popp

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#1007 Re: RIP
February 17, 2018, 03:04:24 pm
Pete Minks - legendary figure on the Welsh scene back in the 70s, often associated with Al Rouse but more a dark horse. His was always a name I knew but never really new much about him. He was highly rated by his peers. Liverpool born but long time resident in California, where he died.

duncan

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#1008 Re: RIP
February 17, 2018, 08:29:34 pm
Andy, you’re a bit late to this party (better than too early...). He grabbed his coat and a just opened bottle of scotch and left 6 years ago.

Minks was a prime example of that now almost extinct species of hard men whose hardness was equally expressed in fighting, partying and climbing. He was one of a number of British climbers who settled in N. America in the 70s and 80s, lured by the rock and staying for the lifestyle. He wintered in Tahoe City Trailer Camp (aka Camp 4 north) with Bridwell and similar characters, working on the local ski areas. By the time I arrived in Tahoe (81/82) the boozing had largely taken over from the climbing. I found him a very intimidating character!

There are some good stories in this supertopo thread.

andy popp

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#1009 Re: RIP
February 17, 2018, 11:58:10 pm
Weird - stuff popped on my Facebook today like it was brand new. Sorry folks.

I found him a very intimidating character!

I read an obituary Jim Perrin posted full of stories of the drinking and the fighting and the general mayhem and one of my reactions was definitely, "this bloke sounds like a pain in the arse."

Oldmanmatt

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#1010 Re: RIP
February 21, 2018, 07:59:18 pm
Posted without comment.
(You don’t know how hard that is, or how strong the temptation to post into another thread on this forum).

http://bbc.in/2ofuCRa

DAVETHOMAS90

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#1011 Re: RIP
March 04, 2018, 04:36:58 pm
Roger Bannister.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/43273249

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/roger-bannister-breaks-four-minute-mile

There was some beautiful BBC Archive material on the radio earlier. Not been able to find the link unfortunately.

It was great to hear Bannister's account of training intensely for 45 minutes a day, 5 days a week, and his comments on why he chose running.

"For some the word legend doesn't quite cut it".

My grandfather died from Parkinson's, and there are some other reasons why this is now especially poignant.


mrjonathanr

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#1012 Re: RIP
March 04, 2018, 04:45:23 pm
Distinguished doctor and academic, Master of Pembroke College, a few reasons to admire the man.

Motown

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#1013 Re: RIP
March 06, 2018, 06:14:16 am
Trevor Bayliss of clockwork radio fame. A fascinating life:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/05/trevor-baylis-obituary

Andy F

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#1014 Re: RIP
March 12, 2018, 06:27:45 am
Sir Ken Dodd, creator of the diddymen and tickle stick, teller of many, many, many jokes (including some funny ones) has told his last age 90.

sherlock

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#1015 Re: RIP
March 12, 2018, 09:45:40 am
Saw Ken Dodd live in Manchester,must have been late 70s/early 80s.
He was fucking hilarious.

SA Chris

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#1016 Re: RIP
March 12, 2018, 10:06:51 am
First gig I ever went to, Ken Dodd and the Diddymen at Poole Arts Centre, I must have been about 5 or 6 so about 1975. Legend.

Andy F

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#1017 Re: RIP
March 12, 2018, 06:04:11 pm
One of my favourite jokes of his:

Did you hear about the topless female ventriloquist?

No one saw her mouth move...

 :punk:

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Nibile

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#1019 Re: RIP
March 14, 2018, 01:42:25 pm
What a loss. What a mind, what a fucking genius. One of my idols.

GraemeA

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#1020 Re: RIP
March 14, 2018, 02:18:44 pm
Jim Bowen of Bullseye fame.

duncan

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#1021 Re: RIP
March 22, 2018, 02:24:31 pm
Tom Higgins, at the cutting edge of Californian climbing in the 60s and 70s, has taken his own life. It’s reported had been suffering from chronic nerve pain related to a spinal condition.

Higgins was climbing 5.11 in the 60s and early 70s when this was state of the art. He made the first free ascent of Serenity Crack in '73, though subsequent piton ascents have made it easier. An ethical purist, strong advocate of the ground-up style in developing new routes and a very bold face climber, his Tuolumne routes in particular had a fearsome reputation, forerunners of the Bachar-Yerian.

He coined the term “traditional climbing” which makes him sound like a grumpy old fogey. Nothing could be further from the truth and he was very able to laugh at his purism. His nom de plume on supertopo was LongAgo, which says a little about his dry self-deprecating manner. This is his last post.

I met him briefly at The Pinnacles in the early 80s, he was very interested to see Brits. at such an off-piste venue, and seemed like a lovely man.

andy popp

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#1022 Re: RIP
March 23, 2018, 12:00:15 pm
Sad news. Thanks for sharing Duncan.

T_B

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#1023 Re: RIP
April 20, 2018, 10:16:51 am
Mark Vallance

The man who set up Wild Country and brought us Friends and sticky rubber. 

Mark was diagnosed with Parkinson's nearly 20 years ago but he defied all odds and in terms of Parkinson’s he was an anomaly. He continued to climb, bike and generally be active for a very long time.

Mark was a mentor to me during my late teens, when he became a good friend of my Dad through the Climbers' Club. He took myself, his daughter, Jodie and Eve Prickett to the States when we were teenagers and drove us from Smith Rock to Tuolumne. He paid for most of the trip and he introduced us to Peter Croft, who he knew.

Mark gave me a job at Wild Country and I lived in the 'granny flat' at the end of his house in Foolow for a year in-between school and University. This allowed me to pay for another trip to the States and Canada, where I climbed The Nose and did new routes at Squamish with the late John Rosholt AKA 'The Gambler'.

I didn't have a car when I was in Foolow but Mark would frequently loan me (a reasonably sensible 18 year old), his Land Rover Discovery, so that I could drive into Sheffield and climb at The Foundry. I once scraped it against the wall in the Foundry car park but he was totally relaxed about it.

Some people found Mark to be a bit of an odd character and he certainly rubbed some people up the wrong way. I remember when I was at Wild Country he didn't have a great relationship with all his staff. I don't think he was necessarily a great communicator, but he and I connected and he became very much a father figure to me. He encouraged me to develop designs at Wild Country (I spent time in the factory grinding down single stem nuts that would much later become superlight rocks and we'd make our own lightweight swami harnesses (no buckle)).

I did a Business Studies degree on the basis of getting to know Mark. He generously sponsored me (via Wild Country) through my first year of studies (at that time the business was not in great shape, so he wasn’t able to continue with this, something that I know he felt pretty bad about).

Mark did a lot of incredible stuff in his life, but he didn’t necessarily shout about it. He did some high altitude stuff (Shishapangma), and knocked off the Bob Graham (whenever you went out for a day with him he’d rarely drink anything, saying that he was training his body to require less water!). I belayed him on one of his best leads - Longships Wall at Land's End.

Of course I heard lots of stories from Mark during that period of my life. I think my favourite though is the one where he was Base Commander at the British Antarctic Survey. He described them having spent the winter in darkness and knowing the precise time when the sun would reappear for the first time over the horizon. Someone had set it up so that over the base speakers came The Beatles ‘Here Comes the Sun’. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house” said Mark.

My Dad got to see Mark last weekend and they said farewell to each other. They were very close and Mark really loved my Dad. Mark was an incredibly kind and generous man. He played a big part in my development as a young man and the direction that my life went in. I have a lot to thank him for.

andy_e

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#1024 Re: RIP
April 20, 2018, 10:59:18 am
Thanks for that touching obit, sorry for you loss.

 

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