Footless Crow: Bill Tilman: Turning the page once again on old adventures.

Original Photo: Sandy Lee

When Bill Tilman was lost in the stormy South Atlantic seas in 1977, with the entire crew of the the En Avant, en route to Smith Island, where several of the crew intended to launch a mountaineering expedition, the world lost a remarkable adventurer and irrepressible free spirit. In his 80th year, an age when most people-even those with a climbing and sailing background-have gracefully retired from the activity and content themselves with books and gardening, Tilman found it impossible to let go of the reins. Pushing his elderly body as far as possible. Never for one moment entertaining the possibility that he could not still play a hand’s on roll on an expedition.

Now Vertebrate Publishing-best known as one of the UK’s premier mountaineering book publishers, have teamed up with sailing publishing house, Lodestar Books- to bring Tilman’s adventure books back into the spotlight. With over half of the reprint run already in the bookshops, its a good time for those unfamiliar with this fascinating and iconic figure from the world of mountaineering and ocean sailing, to acquaint themselves with the Tilman oeuvre.

Born at the very end of the 19th century, just as Queen Victoria was leaving the stage, the Merseysider who was born in Wallasey on the Wirral was the son of a successful sugar merchant. Tilman would have looked out to the Liverpool docks across the busy waterway, where he would see the commodity which funded his somewhat privileged life, unloaded into the great warehouses which lined the then thriving Liverpool docklands. Perhaps it was being born at the mouth of a great river which stimulated an interest in all things nautical?

Sent off for a private education at Berkhamstead, after completing his education, the young Tilman soon found himself caught up in the carnage of the first world war. Surviving amongst other campaigns, the battle of the Somme. Ten years after the war, Tilman met up with Eric Shipton who like himself was engaged in the coffee trade of East Africa. Early forays upon Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori cemented a highly successful and long lasting climbing partnership.

Between the wars,Tilman was involved in two of the 1930s Mount Everest expeditions. The 1935 Reconnaissance Expedition, and as leader of the 1938 expedition when he reached 27200 feet without oxygen. With Shipton, he ventured into the previously unexplored Nanda Devi sanctuary in 1934 and two years later he returned and led a UK/US expedition which mounted a successful attempt on the summit. A mountain which until 1950, remained the highest yet climbed.

Despite his age, Tillman volunteered for service in the WW2 and served in North Africa and Dunkirk. Later in the campaign he saw action behind enemy lines and fought with Albanian and Italian partisans in their bloody campaign in southern Europe and was awarded the DSO for his sterling work with the partisans.

After the war and now approaching his 50‘s, he began an impressive ocean sailing career to which complimented his mountaineering activities by enabling him to visit far flung and previously inaccessible areas. Initially setting sail in his famous Pilot Cutter ‘Mischief’ and visiting the Arctic regions and several remote Atlantic and Pacific islands, Tilman went on to skipper two more pilot cutters; ‘Sea Breeze’ and ‘Baroque’, before setting out on his fateful final voyage as a crew member of the Simon Richardson skippered ‘En Avant’.

With regard to the ill fated vessel, its worth quoting from a Yachting and Boating forum where a contributor’s diligent research had turned up the following information.....

“En Avant was a wartime tugboat hull constructed by slave labour. She was a semi-wreck and had been sunk more than once, Richardson himself fitted a Deutz marine engine, large battery banks and a welded keel. She had good stability but low freeboard. There have been differing views of the boat, Colin Putt wrote: "En Avant proved to be a good sea boat and the crew turned up trumps" elsewhere she was described as a "sorry sight" and was thought to be unsuitable for the trip. Conditions on board would have been stark.

I suspect the trip was funded by Richardson's own resources perhaps with contributions from the crew. He bought the boat for £750 and was given the engine. He was keen on Tilman's concept of small, low cost, expeditions. His Mother's writings (which I have not seen) would no doubt flesh this out.....There were seven on the trip: Tilman, Richardson, Coatman, Toombs, Williams (contacted by advert), Johnson (old school friend) and Dittamore (American Climber)....I guess some of the three brought in by advert would be sailors.’.

Bill Tilman spent the last 30 years of his life here in North Wales.Living in the beautifully situated traditional stone country house of Bod Owen, above the Malltraeth Estuary near Barmouth in Gwynedd.Ironically, a quiet and peaceful stretch of water compared to the incomparably wild and stormy waters of the South Atlantic which took his life.

The Adventure Archive..

1929: Tilman is introduced to rock climbing in the Lake District of England.

1930: He ascends Mawenzi and almost ascends Kibo on Kilimanjaro, with Eric Shipton.

1930: He makes first ascent of West Ridge of Batian, and traverses to Nelion, with Shipton.

1932: Tilman ascends Mounts Speke, Baker, and Stanley in the Ruwenzori Range, with Shipton.

1932: In April, he is involved in an accident in the Lake District which leads to the death of J. S. Brogdon.

1932: Later that year, he makes various climbs in the Alps.

1933: Tilman ascends Kilimanjaro (to summit) alone.

1934: Tilman and Shipton, with three others, make the first recorded entrance into the Nanda Devi Sanctuary. They also explore the nearby Badrinath Range.

1935: Tilman unable to acclimatise on the Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition led by Eric Shipton, but climbs various 20,000 ft. peaks in the Everest region.

1936: Tilman attempts various peaks and passes, including the Zemu Gap, in Sikkim, near Kangchenjunga. Later, he leads the first ascent of Nanda Devi.

1937: Shipton and Tilman make a major reconnaissance and surveying expedition in the Karakoram.

1938: Tilman leads another Mount Everest Expedition; he and three others reach above 27,300 ft (8,320 m) but fail to reach the summit.

1938: He traverses the Zemu Gap.

1939: He leads an expedition in the remote Assam Himalaya, which ends in disaster. They attempt Gori Chen, but reach only the lower slopes. The party was ravaged by Malaria, causing the death of one member.

1941: Tilman climbs various peaks in Kurdistan.

1942: He makes a night ascent of Zaghouan, in Tunisia.

1947: Tilman leads an attempt on Rakaposhi which explores five different routes, none of which get near the summit. The expedition then explored the Kukuay Glacier on the southwest side of the Batura Muztagh.

1947: He attempts Muztagh Ata, with Shipton and Gyalgen Sherpa.

1948: Tilman attempts Bogda Feng, in northern Xinjiang, with Shipton and two others, but they only reach outlying summits.

1948: He attempts Chakragil, in western Xinjiang.

1948: He travels in the Chitral area of the Hindu Kush.

1949: Tilman leads a four-month exploratory and scientific expedition to the Langtang, Ganesh, and Jugal Himals in Nepal, in the early stages of that country's re-opening to outsiders. He climbs Paldor in the Ganesh Himal.

1950: He leads the British Annapurna Expedition, which gets close to the summit of Annapurna IV, and attempts other nearby peaks.

1950: Tilman and Charles Houston view Mount Everest from the lower slopes of Pumori, on the recently opened Nepalese side of the peak.

1955 – 12 months, 20,000 miles: First voyage in Mischief. Together with Jorge Quinteros he performs the first longitudinal crossing of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

1957 – 12 months, 21,000 miles, circumnavigation of the African continent

1959 – 12 months, 20,000 miles, South Atlantic, Iles Crozet

1961 – 4 months, 7,500 miles, West Greenland - Upernavik region

1962 – 4 months, 6,500 miles, West Greenland and Baffin Island

1963 – 4 months, 7,000 miles, Bylot Island, Baffin Bay

1964 – 4 months, 3,700 miles, East Greenland

1964 – 5 months, 10,000 miles, skippering the schooner Patanela to Heard Island in the Southern Ocean

1965 – 4 months, 4,000 miles, East Greenland - Return visit

1966 – 12 months, 20,400 miles, Islands of the Southern Ocean

1968 – 3 months, 2,500 miles, East Greenland, Jan Mayen, Loss of Mischief

1969 – 4 months, 3,400 miles, first voyage in Sea Breeze - East Greenland

1970 – 4 months, 5,000 miles, South West Greenland - Faeringehavn, Julianhaab, Nanortalik, Torsukatak

1971 – 4 months, 5,000 miles, Faroe Islands, Iceland, East Greenland - Angmassalik

1972 – 3 months, 3,000 miles, East Greenland, Loss of Sea Breeze

1973 – 4 months, 5,000 miles, First voyage in Baroque, to West Greenland.

1974 – 4 months, 7,000 miles, circumnavigation of Spitzbergen

1975 – 4 months, 5,000 miles, West Greenland

1976 – 4 months, East Greenland - Angmagssalik - Reykjavik

1977 - 1 month, Reykjavik-Lymington

1977 – 4 months (?), Carried as crew/navigator on Simon Richardson's En Avant from Southampton to Las Palmas then Rio de Janeiro. Vessel presumed lost at sea on route to the Falkland Islands with loss of all hands.

Source WikiPedia