[duncan]

“Lovely boy Crew, arrow climber. Wall without end.”

Drummond wrote the first book about climbing I bought: the Avon Gorge guide. I admired him because I was unlike him: poet to my engineer, new routes to my early repeats, performer to my audience. I played by the rules, he invented his own. A whole new grading system! Bolts on Cloggy! Skyhooks on Curbar! His attempt to (aid) solo El Cap. inspired mine. We both came unstuck.

I loved his route names and his writing, Mirror Mirror , about an epic new route in Norway, is probably my favourite climbing story. “To climb is to know he universe is All Right.” Fortunately I never got closer to the Troll Wall than buying the Romsdal guide, but it was there in the back of my mid when headed up on Kjerag for my own climbing nightmare.

Ray Wood has written a few lines about meeting him. I never did.

[sherlock]

His return to St John's Head in the Long Hope film was deeply moving.
RIP.

[SA Chris]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/29/john-singleton-boyz-n-the-hood-director-dies-aged-51

Groundbreaker

[Will Hunt]

Mirror Mirror

Brilliant and petrifying in equal measure.

[andy popp]

“Lovely boy Crew, arrow climber. Wall without end.”

Drummond wrote the first book about climbing I bought: the Avon Gorge guide. I admired him because I was unlike him: poet to my engineer, new routes to my early repeats, performer to my audience. I played by the rules, he invented his own. A whole new grading system! Bolts on Cloggy! Skyhooks on Curbar! His attempt to (aid) solo El Cap. inspired mine. We both came unstuck.

I loved his route names and his writing, Mirror Mirror , about an epic new route in Norway, is probably my favourite climbing story. “To climb is to know he universe is All Right.” Fortunately I never got closer to the Troll Wall than buying the Romsdal guide, but it was there in the back of my mid when headed up on Kjerag for my own climbing nightmare.

Ray Wood has written a few lines about meeting him. I never did.

Lovely post Duncan, thank you. I knew, of course, that the quote was about Crew but there's something so quintessentially Drummond about it.

I never met him, but I did see him perform the show he did on the huge tripod/stool, I think at one of the mountain literature festivals Terry Gifford used to organize. It was very good.

[Falling Down]

He was a bit of a (anti) heroic figure to me.  He wrote his way into, out of, and all around the climbing experience and the life that goes along with it like no-one else has ever done.  I could go and on and on about just how good those stories and poems are.  I've been sat reading them again for the million-umpteenth time this evening at home.

Between the Lines, Frankenstein and Linda, A Grace Period, Child Woman Man, The Incubus Hills... and then the poems:

The Black Lake
(LLyn Du'r Arddu)

From the cliff
the lake waits in the cwm
for the crumbs of scree.

Holding back the monarchy of rock,
she gathers the caddis
in her lap, hikers on the skyline,
purple ravens' wine.

She does the washing when it rains.
Hanging up the clouds for days,
swilling piss-yellow out of the peat,
pelting the sheep,
rinsing the mountains dusty feet.

Our local black hole, a bowl of plums
when the night wind comes
softly.

A choppy day: snappy
as a collie, running all over the place
splattering foam. My teeth chatter.
Skin and bone and stone and stars.

After sunset
she bites. The man in the moon
shivers all night.

The buttery look of the sun.
Lukecool by summer, there are Septembers
water won't melt in her mouth.
Around November
- organpiping icicles -
she runs aground,
a thick, blue porthole
the rain rivets and the wind pounds...

Shut.
The sun rusts
away. Days like icebergs

stuck.
Whistling gleaming creaking
cracks, grass bending
wind winching
- a deep, blue roar -
reopening the colliery of the sky,
making the mountains soar

and tremble... Where I look down,
her wavy, young hair, blown
across his cold, bare stone.

(1975 - 1986)

And then there's the all the groundbreaking first ascents and reckless expeditions up on high.

Wuthering, The Asp, Flute of Hope, Archangel, Banana Finger, Linden (controversially).  A Midsummer Night's Dream, Great Arete.  The Long Hope Route. The Arch Wall.  NA Wall (solo). T-Rex, The Strand, The Moon and of course, a Dream of White Horses.


A Dream of White Horses 

Palomino in the morning,
as the sun rose higher

they dashed, their manes on fire,
pounding their hooves on the rocks,

And smashed - we were climbing -
sank, broken, foaming...

The wind lashed them back,
combing their matted hair,

swollen green sea mares twenty hands high,
surrounded by herds

of nervous blue stallions,
snorting and champing and trampling

us under, given half the chance.
We stood by - a pitch apart -

watching the rein of our rope,
that led between the last grey overhang,

redden like a vein in the sinking sun,
And breathed again.

Their fire gone,
the black horses were drinking,

and we were thinking of a name...
Nothing had been forced - Then the tide

turned, they surged, rearing
- manes smoking white -

running, running
in the night towards us.

(1985).


RIP

 

[andy popp]

Lovely post Ben, thank you.

[Will Hunt]

Does anyone know what became of his partner, Hugh, after the Arch Route epic. Did he lose a foot?!

[Andy F]

Peter Mayhew aka Chewie 

Another childhood hero. The Force will always be with him.

[SA Chris]

Sad. Seemed a real gentleman.

[shark]

Dave ‘Smiler’ Cuthbertson.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Lovely post Ben, thank you.

I'll echo Andy's words. Great post Ben.

Drummond was in many ways a luminary, and yes, often controversial. I've always thought that the act of climbing isn't far removed from words, and how we use them.

Drummond explored what he was trying to say with a great richness.

I was trying to find a copy of the fantastic shot of Drummond on Great Wall at Cloggy, from Ken Wilson's Hard Rock. Stunning.

[Will Hunt]

Yes, stunning.

[shurt]

Jake Phelps - Skateboarder, editor of Thrasher. 56 yrs old. One of a kind.... RIP

Johnny Brown shared this great profile on him a couple of years ago https://story.californiasunday.com/jake-phelps-thrasher

There's some great / hilarious episodes of Epicly Latered ( or however you spell it) featuring him. All on Youtube on on the Channel 4 catch up thing with all the Vice TV stuff on there - all free.

[shurt]

Yes, stunning.

The accompanying article about Great Wall by him is just brilliant. Think it's Extreme Rock? I used to go round to a friends house to read it as I didn't own it

[Will Hunt]

It's in Hard Rock.

[shurt]

It's in Hard Rock.

Fair enough. I was wondering how come an E4 was in Hard Rock - it's listed with the E1 aid grade or something. Weak Ken knowledge from me...

[Will Hunt]

Yeah, there's some weird grading splits between the books. There's plenty of stuff in Hard that gets E2 - E4 or whatever, but Extreme Rock goes as low as E1.

[shurt]

Yeah, there's some weird grading splits between the books. There's plenty of stuff in Hard that gets E2 - E4 or whatever, but Extreme Rock goes as low as E1.

Hey I know Astral Stroll is one of the few complete Extreme Rocks ticks I've got at E1! Nice route, extreme situation but climbing is ok.

[jwi]

Sven Lindqvist is dead.

His book "Exterminate all the brutes" changed my understanding of both colonialism and the holocaust. https://thenewpress.com/books/exterminate-all-brutes

"The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu" meant a lot to me when I was young.

I hated "Diary of a Lover"

An old inteview https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/22/sven-lindqvist-life-in-writing

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Ben Raemers



The parallels between skating and climbing - and the characters who enjoy both worlds - have always seemed really obvious to me.

[Falling Down]

Jake Phelps - Skateboarder, editor of Thrasher. 56 yrs old. One of a kind.... RIP

Johnny Brown shared this great profile on him a couple of years ago https://story.californiasunday.com/jake-phelps-thrasher

There's some great / hilarious episodes of Epicly Latered ( or however you spell it) featuring him. All on Youtube on on the Channel 4 catch up thing with all the Vice TV stuff on there - all free.

Just seen this Sam - will check them out.  I liked him...

[SA Chris]

We missed Dick Dale I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/17/dick-dale-dies-aged-81-misirlou-pulp-fiction

[SamT]

Niki Lauda   

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/21/niki-lauda-formula-one-legend-dies-aged-70

[Muenchener]

He liked the hills as well as the track. Ran into him a couple of times in huts in the Kaisergebirge.