I conducted this interview for the Leeds
University Union Climbing Club
Journal of 1973, the editor of which was Bernard Newman.It
is fair to say at that date Allan was a (the?) leading pioneer of
Yorkshire and Lakeland climbing.
Dennis
Gray: Do you have any fondness for such interviews? ‘Allan Austin
tells all!’ Do you think they serve any useful purpose?
Allan
Austin: No I don’t think they serve any useful purpose whatsoever.
They merely provide an easy way to collect a load of print for a
magazine.
D.G.
Much of my early climbing was undertaken with the now legendary
‘Bradford Lads’, who were at the forefront of British climbing in
the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. I once made out a ‘family
tree’ and was surprised at the links, some tenuous, but some close
between that group and most of the leading climbers who followed on
over the next decade. I believe your early climbing was done with one
of the ‘Lads’ – Mike Dixon?
A.A.
No, I used to climb with Brian Evans and Mike was a friend of his.
The first time I actually climbed was with Ashley Petts, and the next
on a Mountaineering Association beginners-course in Llanberis. This
was organised by Robin Collomb-and that would be at Christmas 1955.
D.G.
You were very lucky in having Brian Evans as a partner in those early
days. In my opinion he was one of the steadiest and most under-rated
climbers of his generation. When
I first met you in 1956, I thought this guy will, either win fame of
end up lame! Your climbing was characterised by strength,
determination and drive, which often led you out of your depth!
A.A.
There is a fair amount of truth in that! We used to climb as a team
of three; we needed the third man to rescue the leader after he had
run out of strength. We recruited Doug Verity-a big bloke, who could
stretch out his hands flat, so I could stand with all my weight on
them! I
climbed with Brian because he was of my age group. I had transport
and I was keen, and he was a good climber with no transport. Brian’s
idea was to climb at Very Severe, and he was the only bloke in the
club (The Yorkshire Mountaineering Club), besides Ashley who
consistently led at that standard. They were not really hard you
know, but with the aid of my transport we had a lot more
opportunities, and therefore we became very good as a result.
D.G.
So initially you feel that Brian Evans was the driving force of your
group?
A.A.
Definitely: Brian would say ‘We’ll do this route’ or ‘We’ll
try up there’. The first big route we pioneered was Stickle Groove
on Pavey Ark. Brian had said to me in the club hut at Ilkley, ‘We’ll
go to the Lakes and repeat Dolphin’s climb Chequer Buttress’. It
had not then been repeated. And then once there, he noticed a big gap
near to this, and so we filled in this gap and also climbed Chequer
Buttress.
D.G.
In the late 1950’s you pioneered many outcrop climbs, but just like
many others before, and since, you used aid which has been shown to
be superfluous. I am thinking of climbs at Brimham such as Hatter’s
Groove and the first pitch of Minion’s Way where you stood on your
second’s shoulders!
A.A.
No I didn’t. We had spent a month trying it like that, but in the
end we climbed it free.
D.G.
Well, that is as maybe, but today you are feared by young climbers
who do make similar errors, for you will, and rightly so in my
opinion speak out against such mistakes. But is this not a case of
‘the kettle calling the pot black?’
A.A.
Everybody makes mistakes, and I think I have fewer pitons per foot
climbed of any climber of my own time. Up to 1960 we had pioneered
two hundred or so new routes, and I don’t think we used aid on any
route on gritstone, except for Hatter’s Groove, and in the Lake
District, out of a hundred new climbs-only half a dozen pitons. I am
not proud of using these, for I am weak like everyone else; but
having said that I will stand back and realise that utilising them
was a mistake. I for one do not try to back my ‘blunders’ up.
D.G.
Having read the recently published, Fell and Rock New Climbs booklet,
I was surprised at the amount of aid the new generation of pioneers
are allowing themselves to use in the Lake District. Do you think
that some climbs are being forced today that should be left until
standards rise further in order that they can be climbed without such
methods?
A.A.
Oh, hell aye! The prime example of this is Peccadillo. This had been
tried by-Geoff Oliver, Les Brown, and several other outstanding,
leaders; and they had all failed to solve this problem. But along
comes a modern team, who also could not climb this route, and so they
abseiled down and fixed an in situ sling, which they then used to get
them over the difficult section.
I
reckon this sling, marks the point at which they failed, and it has
solved nothing. It was not a legitimate ascent and it should not be
recognised. Climbers now seem to be picking a line up a cliff and
using just enough aid to make sure they are successful in climbing
it, without really considering if the climb would be possible without
this. I am not in a position anymore to change things. Once I might
have climbed such routes without resorting to aid, but I cannot
anymore. Shouting is not enough; it really needs some very good
climbers to be active in the Lake District again. An example needs to
be set. If three or four of the areas leading climbers are using a
lot of aid then other people are bound to follow their example.
D.G.
Don’t you think in some of these cases a stronger line should be
take by the Guidebook editors?
A.A.
Yes I do. In the new Langdale guide, I have been fairly courageous
and have cut out three routes, which had utilised excessive aid. If
the artificial section of a climb is the main part, then we have not
included it. For example-The Pod on Pavey Ark, that was ascended by
John Barraclough, using seven pitons for aid. It has subsequently
been repeated using only two. In general there is too much of a rush
to climb a new route and then get it into print. This is a very bad
thing for the sport.
D.G.
Do you think the magazines, are to blame for this?
A.A.
In part, the system of first ascent lists at the back of a
guidebook is also to blame. I much prefer Dolphin’s system of a
paragraph about each crag, picking out the historical highlights.
D.G.
I can’t say that I agree with you there. You mentioned Dolphin; you
never knew him but you have repeated many of his hardest climbs. In
the early 1950’s there was nonsense abroad about Joe Brown having
created a ‘new standard’ in rock climbing, a ‘breakthrough’.
But I believe that Dolphin had already achieved this on outcrops, as
also had Peter Harding before Brown and Whillans.
A.A.
You are right, but it was only for a short period. When Joe started
pioneering his new routes in Wales, Dolphin’s routes in the Lake
District were of the same standard. But by 1953 Brown’s routes such
as Surplomb and Black Cleft were of a new grade, but not his earlier
climbs such as Cenotaph Corner and Hangover, which were only as hard
as routes like ‘Do Not’ in Langdale.
D.G.
Dolphin was improving every year though, and for example he had
climbed a long way up Delphinus and examined many new possibilities
on the East Buttress of Scafell before his death. But returning to
your early career, you were amongst the first to try to prick the
‘Rock and Ice’ ‘Bubble’. I do remember your article, ‘The
White Rose on Gritstone!’
A.A.
Ken Wilson, the editor of Mountain Magazine, described it as one of
the most biased articles he had ever read!
D.G.
You were a little carried away in your attempt to break down the
myths. I can remember you standing on Joe Brown’s shoulders when
you got into trouble on the ‘Dead Bay Crack!’ This attitude did
tend to grind a little with we Rock and Ice members after witnessing
such a performance.
A.A.
Well, Joe Brown had pointed Mortimer Smith and myself at this climb
and then sat back and watched whilst we failed on it. He had to
rescue both of us from the crux but I was the one who led it in the
end. It took me four hours!
D.G.
I led this climb a short while later and found it reasonable. Was it
that you were psychologically embezzled?
A.A.
No, it was the fact that it was at the limit of my climbing ability
at that date (1956). The same day Mortimer and I had failed on
Peapod.
D.G.
Do you accept though, that some of your statements in that article
were a little outrageous?
A.A.
The article was written to be provocative. I decided years ago that
if you were not opinionated in an article, then it was not worth
reading, so I deliberately intended to annoy the reader. It seems I
did not succeed in this, but I certainly did provoke some people! To
be honest though; at that date there was no one to approach the Rock
and Ice on gritstone. There were odd climbers like Pete Biven, Pete
Hassell and myself who were trying their easier routes, but the
climbs that they considered hard such as The Right Eliminate, we did
not even look at. It took us a full year or more to catch up, and to
develop the necessary techniques and standards, but in 1956, we were
lucky if we managed to climb any of Joe Brown’s or Don Whillan’s
routes!

D.G.
It seems to me now looking back over these years, that contemporary
climbing historians have a wrong view of events in Wales towards the
end of this decade of the 1950’s. A recently published book has it
that in North Wales in 1957, only one climber not a member of The
Rock and Ice Club was climbing the hard, major Cloggy routes. I am
sure you will recall Metcalf repeating some of these big climbs in
1956, and you yourself were making early repeats in 1957. Why do you
think these reports are so inaccurate?
A.A.
Because they were so parochial, I can remember John Disley telling me
that when you had four climbers, leading Very Severes, in the
Llanberis Pass, that they represented the climbing strength of
Britain. This did not include people like Dolphin and his friends
active in the Lake District, or the Creagh Dhu in Scotland who were
actually climbing at a much higher standard than Very Severe. He
could not see past Harding, Moulam, Lawton and himself. This attitude
ran on into the late 1950’s when archivists like Rodney Wilson had
prepared lists which included the first five or sixth ascents of
routes like Cenotaph Corner. He’d never heard of Metcalf or Pete
Greenwood! Rodney once informed me that I had done the second ascent
of the Black Wall, but I already knew that John Ramsden had also
repeated it four years earlier.
D.G.
Why do you think you have always concentrated on rock climbing? You
have visited the Alps, but you now seem to confine your activities to
West Yorkshire and the Lake District. Why is this?
A.A.
My holidays have always been short, a fortnight at the most, and
working on a Saturday morning meant that I had to get time off to
travel to Wales. Hence nearer climbing areas were of necessity my
goal. One holiday I took in the Alps it rained and snowed for two
weeks and I did not get up a single route. So we travelled on to the
Dolomites, where a break in the weather would also because of that
mean there would be no climbing for several days.
At
one time however, it did seem that we concentrated and only climbed
in the Lake District. But for a five year period before that we
alternated weekends between there and Wales, and in fact I had
managed all but two of the routes in Don Roscoe’s guide to the
Llanberis Pass.
D.G.
You never managed many new routes in Wales, but you were always out
in the front as a pioneer in the Lake District.
A.A.
I thought that the Lake District needed a spur to bring it up to the
standard of Welsh climbing, and so I was prepared to sacrifice myself
for that cause. We only travelled down to Wales to attempt Joe
Brown’s routes. It seemed to me then, that there were bigger and
harder routes in Wales, and so we concentrated on the Lake District
to try to develop the same there. At that date, 1959, there were ten
extreme climbs in Wales for every single one in the Lakes.
D.G.
Did you manage to carry this policy out?
A.A.
Yes, we pioneered some hard climbs but none as big as the famous
Welsh routes. Unfortunately we never found any ‘Cloggy’s’.
All
we discovered were climbs like those in the Llanberis Pass, so all
the major classics in Wales are unmatched in the Lake District.
There
cannot be a dozen climbs in the Lakes, which compare to the top 60 in
Wales.
D.G.
Can you still do one arm, pull-ups?
A.A.
No. I could only ever do those at all on the door of the Ilkley hut,
which was at such a height that I could start with my arm slightly
bent.
D.G
In the last few years there has been a tremendous increase in the use
of indoor climbing walls. I have visited the Leeds University wall in
the past and last year I became a regular visitor, but this year it
bores me. Perhaps it is because I cannot compete against the youths
one now finds there, climbers like John Syrett, John Stainforth, and
that, long-haired yob Bernard Newman! The last time I saw you there,
you were not exactly ‘number one.’ Do you mind being burnt off by
the younger generation, or will you keep on going until you draw your
old age pension?
A.A.
No I do not mind them burning me off. I go to the wall mainly for the
social side, to meet other climbers: they are not such a bad lot-
really. I went there once on my own and spent twenty minutes before
going home because I was bored. It is the people who go there, which
make the wall an interesting venue, but it also might be the
competitive element as well.
D.G.
Climbing in this country is very parochial and I think West
Yorkshire climbers are as guilty of this as any, including the Scots. Why
do you think these attitudes exist- Lakes versus Wales, Yorkshire
versus Derbyshire?
A.A.
It is just nationalism I suppose. Everyone likes to believe that they
come from a special area. When I first started climbing I did not
care two hoots whether it was the Lakes or Wales, that was until I
met Joe Brown. His remarks about Yorkshire and the Lakes tended to
get my back up, and I guess it all stemmed from that.
D.G.
Do you think that was a deliberate tactic on his part?
A.A.
Oh, hell aye! Joe has spent his life knocking others; he never stops
doing this. One-upmanship is Joe’s life.
D.G
Do you think this is because Brown has a superiority complex?
A.A.
No, I think he just likes to set people up. It is his form of humour.
He hasn’t got a superiority complex and he is not an inverted snob
like some of the other members of the Rock and Ice. A
typical remark to me after I had failed on a route would be: ‘I
always said you were the best climber to come out of Yorkshire, but
really there never much good are they?’
D.G
Of all the routes which you have pioneered, which gave you the most
pleasure and which do you think was the hardest to complete?
A.A.
The Wall of Horrors gave me the most pleasure. It had been a
long-standing problem and the scene of many previous attempts.
Climbing a route with such a long history is always satisfying, even
more so than discovering a new line. I had been trying it for a
couple of years. Nowadays one might resort to using aid, a peg or a
sling, in case someone else came along and bagged it before you.
D.G.
I remember Dolphin telling me as a boy, of his top-roped ascent of
the Wall of Horrors. And he had decided to leave it to be led on
sight by the next generation. He sensed that there was a change in
climbing ethics, and considered that on-sight leads should be
encouraged for first ascents. I personally was upset when you
continually top-roped the route prior to leading it. I think it would
have been better if you had led it on-sight. Do you still think that
you were justified in your methods when Dolphin had already shown it
was feasible?
John Syrett on Allan Austin's 'Wall of Horrors'
A.A.
A top rope ascent does not show that the route is possible, and
anyway in that era most of the hardest gritstone routes had been top
rope inspected before their first ascent. I once saw John Gosling
leading a new route at the Roaches in Staffordshire. He was able to
clip into a piton, which had been pre-placed on an abseil rope
without even looking for it. He made the route look easy! I agree
that sight leading is the most satisfying way to climb, but on
outcrops where standards have always been pushed, I do not think that
top-roping will ever be abandoned.
D.G.
You have climbed at Harrison’s Rocks in Kent, do you think that the
routes there should be led as a matter of course, instead of being
top-roped.
A.A.
Yes, climbing at Harrison’s should employ the same technique as any
other outcrop, for example Almscliff. The rock is generally quite
sound enough.
D.G.
Several of your friends have been killed whilst climbing. Do you
think that such is worth the sacrifice?
A.A.
Climbing is not worth getting killed for, but without some spur you
just would not try. The reward in climbing is the intense personal
satisfaction of having overcome a challenge with a certain level of
danger involved. Without that danger there would be no point in going
climbing, you might just as well be in a gymnasium or on a climbing
wall! The only reason you go out onto a mountain is because it is
such an unfriendly place, and you overcome the difficulties. Nowadays
we make up a lot of rules, put them into a straight jacket, and call
them climbs.
D.G.
I have found that one, of the best aspects of climbing is the
Friendships that you might make.
A.A.
If you climb a lot you meet other people who climb a lot and who have
the same attitudes as you. Under stress, even if it is voluntarily
induced, you find a lot out about people and if what you discover is
good, then they, become a friend.
D.G.
Do you reckon this is why women have not so far fitted into climbing
circles, because they are not in a position to strike up these kind
of friendships?
A.A.
Basically I think women are motivated differently, for they have no
need to try. Man’s role has always in the past been the
breadwinner, and up until recently women have never been in a
competitive situation. I cannot think of another reason why women are
not interested in climbing; they are only interested in the blokes,
not even in the other women. The proportion of women who climb for
‘climbing’s sake’ is small.
D.G
What is your opinion of solo climbing? I refer to the sight soloing
of hard routes, because your maxim has been, ‘sane men only lead on
sight where there is some protection’.
A.A.
I would like to be able to solo, really hard routes. If it gives a
climber a kick to solo a climb, then I have nothing against it,
because we go to the mountains basically to enjoy ourselves.
D.G.
Who-do you think has been the most outstanding climber of your
aquaintence?
A.A.
The most impressive climbers I have ever climbed with were Joe Brown,
Pat Walsh and Don Whillans. Of them all, I think Whillans impressed
me the most. I could not understand how Joe climbed, but Whillans
climbed like myself only better. I do not know what made Walsh climb,
but he also climbed better than-me, although he did not have any
sense of dedication as far as I could see. He did not seem to have
any drive, his techniques were not marshalled, he-just walked up to
the foot of a rock face and ascended it. Whillans climbed just like I
did, he thought about a route and arranged protection like I did,
only better. Joe’s style was completely different; he never climbed
like anyone else I have ever seen. He had a style all of his own and
I could not assess how he achieved this.
D.G.
I think this was the basis of Joe’s ability to psychologically
embezzle the people he climbed with. Moseley failed to follow him on
the first ascent of the Boulder, which Ron himself was capable of
leading quite easily.
A.A.
True, Brown broke almost all the men he climbed with as regular
partners. When you think of how good they were when they first
started climbing with Joe, they were almost without exception
climbing worse when he stopped climbing with them. The only climber
who did not was Whillans, presumably he was good at the beginning of
their partnership, and he ‘grew up’ with Brown.
D.G.
To switch to a lighter tone, the subject of climbing names has always
fascinated me. It has been a social commentary almost on the
development of our sport. I think you have been one of the climbers
who has continually managed to produce excellent names. I am thinking
of such as the ‘Ragman’s Trumpet’ and ‘Man of Straw’. How
do you keep coming up with names like that?
A.A.
Well, generally I am told by other climbers that my names are poor.
The people who climb with me generally title the routes; they do not
accept my names.
D.G.
So someone else deserves all the credit?
A.A.
Ragman’s Trumpet was a particular line on Bowfell. The Tomlin team
rolled up one day and they declared, ‘We will climb that one day,
by God, and we’ll call it the Ragman’s Trumpet!’ They were
getting at me I suppose. The Man of Straw was myself; I just did not
like placing that peg. I have done the route since without it and
there is not much difference in standard.
D.G.
Mass circulation climbing magazines are here to stay, and their
Circulation’s continue to rise. In my opinion you are no mean
writer, some of your articles over the years must be amongst the
finest to appear in climbing journals. Why is that you have never
contributed to any of the mass circulation climbing magazines?
A.A.
The effect that these magazines have on climbing is a bad one. They
foster the desire to get into print to the detriment of the sport.
For example, if you cannot get up a climb then overcome this by using
a piton for aid because you do not get your name into the magazines
by failing. The other thing is that it takes me so much effort to
write an article, I would rather it went into a journal, where it is
kept historically, than a magazine which is thrown away! As for the
money they offer, which is not much, I might just as well offer my
articles to club journals. I am not interested in forwarding the
interests of these magazines; any contribution I can give to climbing
is free. The only proviso is that I direct where the article goes-and
it must not go to these periodicals.
D.G.
I must disagree, for I feel that a good climbing magazine can fill a
very useful purpose. Getting
back to your climbing, do you consider that your hard routes of today
compare with the climbs you were pioneering ten or fifteen years ago?
Or do you feel that you reached your peak with climbs like High
Street and Astra and although your new routes now might be harder,
it’s just the fact that you have become more cunning?
A.A.
Modern protection methods enable me to still climb at a high
standard. If 1972 were 1955 I would have by now, given up all
thoughts of hard new routing. Dolphin thought he was at his peak at
27 and I agree with him. I do not think that a climber can climb past
his youthful enthusiasm without good protection on routes. It is guts
and stupidity, which makes a climber lead, hard bold routes- and you,
can only do that when you are under 30. It’s not a question of
being married with a family; it is just that after that age you start
slowing down mentally. Modern protection methods are like whiskey,
when you are going to try a hard move; you put a nut in.
I
would certainly not have been able to make the moves today which I
did in 1955, regardless of how hard they are. Until your middle
thirties your muscular ability is still good, but after that age,
your peak performance begins to drop off, though your stamina might
improve. Yet with the aid of the new protection devices you can still
make such hard moves, which can only mean in your earlier days you
were climbing well below your top standard. The margins of safety
then meant that one needed to rely on having good technique, and not
to be bolstered by rope work and modern protection. My climbs of
today are a lot easier to pioneer, and mentally they only take me one
tenth of the effort they once did. It has been years since I was
frightened that I was going to be killed.
D.G.
You have always been the absolute amateur, climbing mainly at
weekends and during short summer holidays. Have you ever been envious
of climbers like Bonington and Brown who have managed to spend so
much of their time climbing. Do you think that professionalism with
its inevitable train of commercialism will in the end be a very bad
thing for the future of climbing?
A.A.
I think professionalism is bad for climbing. Climbing is essentially
a pastime and not a competitive activity; hence the more that
professionalism develops the worse it is for our sport. Am I envious?
If I had my time over again I would most certainly spend four years
at a University, doing a subject that involves the minimum amount of
work, and a maximum of spare time. Expeditions-no I am not interested
in. The effort involved seems to me to be so great I do not think I
would enjoy it. The pinnacle of my desire would be a three- month
holiday in the Alps.
D.G.
Do you think that you ever give up climbing?
A.A.
I hope that I will always climb. I cannot say whether that will
always be so. I will find it difficult to drop my standard, but I
ought to be leaving a lot of easier routes to climb in the years to
come. I think I will always climb. I hope to be like some of the old
Fell and Rock Club members, like the present President on his meet at
65 years of age. Borrowing a pair of rock boots to be taken up some
Very Severes-that is how I hope I will be at 65, borrowing somebody
else’s magic boots and being led up an Extreme climb.
D.G.
Many thanks Allan. I think we need to enlighten a new generation of
climbers as to why ‘Ragman’s Trumpet’ was in your case so
apposite, for your weekdays are spent working in the family business,
as wool waste merchants (Once a traditional historical activity in
Bradford?)
Update:
In later life Allan due to injury turned away from climbing to
sailing and his family opened an outdoor retail shop in Bradford,
using his name as the identifier. Brian Evans was a founder along
with Walt Unsworth of the Cicerone Press, which they sold on at their
retirement.
Dennis Gray: 1973