[mrjonathanr]

Loved this, what an ace film, like being 19 again. Well put together, good footage,  coherent story. And Ned on Revelations 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2018/10/statement_of_youth_trailer-71753

[monkoffunk]

Is the whole film available to watch yet?

[mrjonathanr]

I watched a screening at Manchester climbing wall- the download will be available after it has shown in Kendal I believe. Till then it’s at a few walls I think.

He explains the factors that made Hunter House Road the hardest climbing street in the UK rather well I think. I liked the argument as well as the nostalgia- & there’s some really cool footage of the time.

[Duncan campbell]

It’s already shown at Kendal. Think there are screenings at some walls then a premiere in Sheffield (odd way round) then it will be available to watch online.

Not seen it but good on Alan (UKC/rockfall evil overlord  ) for putting the money into this. I think it will be a great film.

[Johnny Brown]

Sheffield premiere last night, absolute triumph. Props to Nick for really nailing it. The focus is very narrow - on the Hunter House road crew and sport climbing only - but it's a tighter film for it. Good to see a lot of the protagonists in the room and thoroughly enjoying it along with amusing their families.

Q & A started well but unfortunately ended in a rather tedious gender politics cul-de-sac. Get well soon Jerry.

[Andy B]

Wot Adam said.

Thoroughly enjoyed it and thought what we saw of the Q and A session added to it well. Bashers comments re. Participation in and promotion of climbing have really changed my mind about a few issues.
Sounds like we were lucky to have to go and relieve the baby sitter just as the gender politics got going.

[reeve]

Bashers comments re. Participation in and promotion of climbing have really changed my mind about a few issues.

We didn't stay for the Q&A bit this sounds interesting. What was the jist?

[sheavi]

Saw this last night too - really enjoyed it - well done those involved.  Good Q&A until gender politics but that was just one person with an axe to grind I suspect.  Nick did a good job.

[Offwidth]

Sheffield premiere last night, absolute triumph. Props to Nick for really nailing it. The focus is very narrow - on the Hunter House road crew and sport climbing only - but it's a tighter film for it. Good to see a lot of the protagonists in the room and thoroughly enjoying it along with amusing their families.

Q & A started well but unfortunately ended in a rather tedious gender politics cul-de-sac. Get well soon Jerry.

Spot on ...

On a side issue its a shame to see you still don't realise my type of hero was the man I sat next to at the end, not the beginning (big numbers were never my thing.... style and community contribution still are), and I really hope no one got my cold.

[Will Hunt]

I was out with Paul Clarke a couple of weekends ago and we were talking about this film. Hunter House Road came up and he laughed. He'd been round to pick up Basher or someone and they were all on a rest day and the house stunk of onions.
"We're resting today. On a rest day, all you can eat is boiled onions. If you boil 'em for ages they've got no nutritional value but they still make you feel full. Great!"


Anyone care to elaborate more on the Q&A stuff? Both what Basher said and what the gender thing was? Love a bit of goss, me.

[Nibile]

Get well soon Jerry.

Please clarify?

[Johnny Brown]

According to Basher he was in Lanzarote last week, got dumped on his head in the shorebreak and compressed 3 vertebrae. Recovering well but a hell of a knock.

Not so much goss Will, just seemed to be to be a bit tangential.  Props to Basher and Debbie for handling it well.

[Nibile]

Ouch!
Cheers Johnny.

[SA Chris]

Famara i'll bet. Some sketchy sandbars there.

[sheavi]

Re: Jerry's injury which was originally not diagnosed, was transported to G.Canaria for surgery - rods inserted to stabilise the fractures (C5-7).  On the mend hopefully.

[Nibile]

 
Fucking hell!!!

[Doylo]

I may be biased as it’s my favourite era but SOY is the best British climbing film in years. Great work Nick B.

[user deactivated]

Jesus Doylo U BroWn NoSer

[Wood FT]

I may be biased as it’s my favourite era but SOY is the best British climbing film in years. Great work Nick B.

Yeah I loved it too, fantastic. So glad it’s been recorded this way. It was really stirring watching those routes get done in tandem at the end.

Thanks, Nick.

[Doylo]

Jesus Doylo U BroWn NoSer

Credit where it’s due OldBoy. Most the others are awful.

[user deactivated]

Still the brown Nosing is unbeaRable, U R sacked from The EdiToRiaL with immediate immediacy. SlArTY, TWatface and the Team

[user deactivated]

We could have an Online scrap like Shark and Offwidth?

[moose]

like Don Quixote with a broken Caps Lock key; tilting at wind-mills, fighting hard with the gifts of obscenity and imagination against a largely imaginary enemy.

[user deactivated]

Don’t talk about Shark like that, how rude.....

[SA Chris]

Update on JM's injury?

[petejh]

Thought this was ace. Well put together with the old footage mixed in with some nice reenactment stuff - loved seeing the footage of Jerry on Liquid Ambar. Hopefully it'll inspire one or two of today's wads to see if they're good enough to climb a testpiece power-endurance 8c+ which has defeated most... 

[Will Hunt]

I enjoyed the film. Nice old skool footage. It would have been even better if I'd been alive during that era. It oozed nostalgia. Great stuff.

I don't want to lead this thread into a rather tedious gender politics cul-de-sac, but it was a strikingly male film.
I'm not necessarily having a go at it for that as I'm guessing that was quite representative of the scene at the time. Particularly Hunter House Road and the development of sport climbing. Were there any women who were active in bringing hard sport into the UK? I'm aware of Ruth Jenkins' contribution but have a feeling that her era was the 90s? Was Airlie around/involved or did she come later too? Sorry - genuine ignorance on my part.

[andy popp]

Airlie and Ruth were more the 90s. Bonny Masson and Claudie Dunn were probably important early female sport climbers. As I remember Geraldine largely climbed (and presumably still climbs) trad. I'm sure there are more though. The 80s scenes simply were very male, that was true of Beris too.

[gme]

I loved this but I obviously would. However nostalgia aside I think Nic’s done a great job. It truly was an amazing time for climbing that really inspired many of us who started during the era.

And re the male focus, there really were not many women climbing then might be hard to believe now but there were literally a hand full. I didn’t see a female climbing in Northumberland or the lakes in the 80s. Only Bonny Masson in Yorkshire.
Even in the early 90s there were not many.

[Muenchener]

As I remember Geraldine largely climbed (and presumably still climbs) trad.

I suspect the "still" part may be unlikely since she lives on Kalymnos

[Doylo]

Thought this was ace. Well put together with the old footage mixed in with some nice reenactment stuff - loved seeing the footage of Jerry on Liquid Ambar. Hopefully it'll inspire one or two of today's wads to see if they're good enough to climb a testpiece power-endurance 8c+ which has defeated most... 

Never thought I’d see any new footage of Jez on LA. And on Hubble too, looking pretty strong on it.

[sheavi]

Update on JM's injury?

Saw Ben Moon couple of days ago - JM doing well, neck brace off.

[SA Chris]

Great, thanks

Could have ended badly!

https://magicseaweed.com/news/bodyboarder-dies-in-canary-islands-as-all-time-xl-swell-hits/11295/

[Nibile]

I just watched it and it's absolutely brilliant!

On a side note, unless there was some hi-tech editing, Ned did actually solo Revelations, didn't he?
I think this should have deserved more recognition.

[Will Hunt]

I just watched it and it's absolutely brilliant!

On a side note, unless there was some hi-tech editing, Ned did actually solo Revelations, didn't he?
I think this should have deserved more recognition.

There was a photo on Facebook somewhere of the biggest pad stack you've ever seen at the bottom of it.

[Nibile]

Thank you, fair enough.

[Johnny Brown]

Not sure of the details but I don't think he did it all in a one-er either.

Just to explore Will's theme a little further, I couldn't help noticing it was also a strikingly white film. And not only that, although the protagonists sexuality wasn't explicitly explored, there were strongly heterosexual tones. I had really hoped that a more modern, inclusive view of the 1980's Hunter House Road scene might have recast it somewhere along the lines of Pose/ Paris is Burning?

[spidermonkey09]

Not sure of the details but I don't think he did it all in a one-er either.

Just to explore Will's theme a little further, I couldn't help noticing it was also a strikingly white film. And not only that, although the protagonists sexuality wasn't explicitly explored, there were strongly heterosexual tones. I had really hoped that a more modern, inclusive view of the 1980's Hunter House Road scene might have recast it somewhere along the lines of Pose/ Paris is Burning?

It was also a strikingly male film, which earlier in the thread sounds like was glossed over a little in the q&a? Although I wasn't there so pure conjecture.

[Will Hunt]

I don't think it's a problem that it was a very white/straight/male film because it sounds like that's how the scene was at the time. I wasn't suggesting that we should alter history to fit with modern sensibilities, nor should we impose our values on how we judge historical people or events.

[petejh]

Is pointing out that the 80s climbing scene was very white and male not extremely obvious though? Maybe not to those born in the 1990s?

A bit like saying the orangutan enclosure at Chester Zoo is very ape and hairy.

[Johnny Brown]

Quite. Which is why I considered it a pointless cul-de-sac. (Sorry, spidermonkey09, I was at the Q&A, it wasn't glossed over at all, and I am now taking the piss).

It's a documentary about a very small group of friends in their early twenties. I know it is the fashionable angle of 2019, but I really can't see the point in exploring why they represented a narrow demographic any more than exploring why there weren't any lesbian asians in Cool Runnings.

[spidermonkey09]

Apologies, I missed the pisstaking! I agree with all of the above. Although pretty sure some of the pics of Andy Pollitt were Glenn Robbins shots, which might have a slight homoerotic angle! (see the Jam Crack with Glenn, a great listen).

[Doylo]

Some of them must have gone down ‘bournville boulevard’ during barron spells.

[petejh]

Some of them must have gone down ‘bournville boulevard’ during barron spells.

To be fair who wouldn't want a bit of this man-action:

[duncan]

I enjoyed the film a lot, a UK equivalent to Valley Uprising, structurally and in its mythologising. It romanticised the crapness of the early 80s but only a little. I was only a visitor and never a resident of 84 but it seemed a pretty accurate portrait. Like Revelations it underplayed the drug taking but as some of the protagonists now have jobs and children that’s not a big surprise.

The biggest change in climbing in the last 30 years has been the increase in women participating. In 1984 it was almost solely the preserve of badly adjusted heterosexual (or very closeted, Glen Robbins the notable exception) white men. I was struck by this when watching the film but can’t see how it could have been otherwise.

[spidermonkey09]

While watching it I idly wondered how many of the (I presume) virulently anti-Thatcher protaganists at the time might have voted for her in their current incarnations as businessmen? NB: I may be ascribing political views to them that they didn't hold; no idea!

[cheque]

...any more than exploring why there weren't any lesbian asians in Cool Runnings.

Completely aside from this discussion, I would love to see a Hollywood version of Statement of Youth in the style of Cool Runnings.

[Johnny Brown]

While watching it I idly wondered how many of the (I presume) virulently anti-Thatcher protaganists at the time might have voted for her in their current incarnations as businessmen? NB: I may be ascribing political views to them that they didn't hold; no idea!

There's been some discussion along these lines on the UKC thread...

Completely aside from this discussion, I would love to see a Hollywood version of Statement of Youth in the style of Cool Runnings.

Just as long as they find a role for John Candy.

[gme]

While watching it I idly wondered how many of the (I presume) virulently anti-Thatcher protaganists at the time might have voted for her in their current incarnations as businessmen? NB: I may be ascribing political views to them that they didn't hold; no idea!

You obviously have a very stereotypical view of business men as I would suggest very few in the film vote as you suggest. One definitely does but suggest a vast majority don’t.   
Along similar lines it’s interesting how many ex enterprise allowance scheme members went on to be successful business men.

[gme]

And if you think that 80s sheffield climbing was white male and straight you should have seen Northumberland.

Most in this film should have been looked at as pretty camp boys up north.

[spidermonkey09]

You obviously have a very stereotypical view of business men as I would suggest very few in the film vote as you suggest. One definitely does but suggest a vast majority don’t.   
Along similar lines it’s interesting how many ex enterprise allowance scheme members went on to be successful business men.

I have absolutely no idea how anyone in the film votes; as I say, it was merely an idle thought based on the general trend of people being youthful radicals and becoming more conservative as time goes on.

Re the EAS, that point was made on the ukc thread; makes sense to me as it effectively de-risked starting ones own business as far as I can tell. Sure plenty made much of it even if a few used it as climbing sponsorship!

[grimer]

I really enjoyed the film, especially the second half. Maybe I knoew the HHR stuff from Revelations, but it was just great to watch Ben and Jerry climbing in their prime, and the cutting together of Liquid Amber and Hubble was really good.

[tommytwotone]

...any more than exploring why there weren't any lesbian asians in Cool Runnings.

Completely aside from this discussion, I would love to see a Hollywood version of Statement of Youth in the style of Cool Runnings.

Tell you what, it'll require some screenwriting genius to segway the story into climbing Hubble in a bobsleigh.

[SA Chris]

Segue in a Segway, doubly impressive.

(not sure the eggcorn was intentional or not)

[Fiend]

And not only that, although the protagonists sexuality wasn't explicitly explored, there were strongly heterosexual tones.

Hmmmmmm I didn't that tone quite as strongly given some of those old photos 

It was good fun, I like how things progressed and particular the ben and jerry stuff in parallel.