‘His
life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might
stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’ Julius
Caesar
Recently
a researcher contacted me to question who I believed in a long life
were the outstanding characters of the mountain world I had been
fortunate to meet and know. I thought for a short while and advised
that the three most stand out personalities known well to myself for
different reasons had been Tom Patey, Don Whillans and Tom Price!
This latter’s inclusion resulted in my interlocutor being rather
fazed, ‘I’ve never heard or read anything about him’ she
responded ‘who was he, why was he so outstanding?’ And here is an
essay which I hope will help to illustrate why I believe this to be
so, for although Tom was not a major pioneering climber compared to
the record of Patey, or Whillans he led a much more varied life, and
one so rich in incident that few others can have equalled it in its
diversity of experience.
Tom
was born in Sheffield in 1919, and for his first decade of life lived
in a rural environment near to Wharncliffe Crags, but his father a
railway worker in order to find employment moved his family to a
sprawling suburb of Liverpool. Price attended there at its Alsop
school, winning a Scholarship to the Cities University to read
English and History, and it was at that institution he started to
seriously climb, having previously as a schoolboy enjoyed hill
walking in Snowdonia. The Presiding spirit of that bodies climbing
club was Graham MacPhee, and he was a friend of both Kirkus and
Edwards, leading pioneers before the last war also originally based
in Liverpool. Tom physically short and slight, with a wiry build and
a fearless approach to steep rock moved quickly up the grades, and he
was soon by the standards immediately before the War leading routes
graded at the top difficulty of the day, Very Severe.
MacPhee
was a controversial character, famed for his acerbic wit, and one
instance of this noted by Tom illustrates this, it occurred on a
University climbing club winter meet on Ben Nevis. Walking up the
Allt a Mhuillin glen to camp under the North Face of the mountain,
MacPhee hired a pony to carry his equipment, leaving his companions
to stagger on behind carrying large, heavy rucksacks. Stopping part
way for a rest, MacPhee addressed his companions thus, pointing at
Tom. ‘Price’ he observed ‘is like an Alpine guide’ a remark
at which its recipient swelled with pride, only to be deflated as he
went on to further observe; ‘They do not sweat, they only stink!’,
MacPhee was however a Nevis expert, and although based in Liverpool,
he produced the first climber’s guidebook to the Ben. Despite the
preceding anecdote, Tom stayed in touch and friends with MacPhee
until his death in a mountain accident in the Canary Islands in 1963.
The
outbreak of war then intervened, and Tom confessed that if it had not
he might never have graduated, for he was in trouble for spending all
his free time, and waking hours, either climbing or thinking about
it, and thus he failed to meet the demands of his course work,
including failing Latin! But the war changed everything; few of
today’s UK population have a notion as to what it was really like,
and typical of those who lived through such life changing
experiences, though I must have spent hundreds of hours in his
company, the only story Tom ever told me about his war, was that
whilst commanding a ship in the Mediterranean near the end of the
conflict, and of how the crew and he were nearly court marshalled
for running a cigarette smuggling racket in league with some American
sailors; which became such a cause celebre that it was resolved by
him receiving a command cipher from the Admiralty ‘Stop it!’
Other details of his war service I have managed to research post his
death in 2013 and it makes for gripping reading. On call up he
elected to join the Royal Navy, for as he was later to modestly
observe, he did this for the lure of the sea and the watery
wilderness of the oceans which meant ‘he spent the war safely at
sea’.
But
nothing could be further away from the truth of his service, for
starting out as a lowly Able Seaman he finished the war as the
Captain of a rocket ship. Initially he volunteered to serve in
minesweepers in the Western Atlantic, spending over two years in that
more than dangerous activity, until one night ashore he was arrested
for drunkenness and placed on Captain’s report. But instead of
being disciplined when his record was examined he was persuaded to
apply for officer selection, which surprising to himself he passed.
He was then assigned to Combined Operations, planning and training
for the invasion of France. At the D-Day landings he was a lieutenant
on a rocket ship carrying Canadian forces into Juno beach, one of the
most challenging of the landing sites. Of the first eleven soldiers
they landed, ten were killed or injured by enemy fire. Post this
event he was promoted and given command of rocket ship LCR 405, which
he sailed into the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of the
South of France.
At
the end of the war in 1946 he returned to Liverpool, back to its
University and its climbing club, but he also joined the Wayfarer’s
in order to be able to use the system of huts in the climbing areas.
He then spent two and a half years completing his studies, ending
with a BA degree and a teaching diploma. Although whilst based in
Liverpool he had been nearer to Snowdonia than the Lake District, he
opted for the latter for much of his climbing, making ascents in
Langdale of routes like Gimmer Crack and Hiatus, and Eliminate C on
Dow Crag. On completing his University education, the fell tops and
crags of Cumbria were not to be denied and he joined the teaching
staff of Workington Grammar School. He also became the coxswain of
the local lifeboat, and took part in several dramatic rescues in the
Irish Sea. In West Cumbria during that era there was a group of
outstanding pioneering climbers led by Bill Peascod; and along with
Harold Drasdo and Peter Greenwood, I was fortunate to meet up with
them in the Gatesgarth barn in Buttermere in the winter of 1950/1.
Without transport, such activists tended to be ‘centrists’, and
for Peascod and his rope mates, that was mainly Buttermere, where
they were pioneering some outstanding new routes. They had formed
their own club, which like so many of that period was short lived,
but amongst their members that weekend I remember meeting Sid Beck
and Tom for the first time.
South Georgia.Image:Royal Geographical Society
Tom
had by then started visiting the Continent to climb, his first foray
had been to the Pyrenees, and later to Mont Blanc and the Valais,
managing classic ascents in what were visits, cut short mainly
because of money shortage. For quite some years post 1945, British
visitors were only allowed to spend a small sum in hard currency on a
single trip. You paid for your train journey in the UK (return), but
all your expenses abroad had to be covered by this small amount. Some
enterprising climbers found ways around this by selling such as a
nylon rope to the continentals, but I can still remember how shocked
I was as a 18 year old, travelling across France by ancient steam
trains that kept breaking down, on the devastation still so obvious
from the war, but one could spin money out by living on local
produce; mainly bread, milk, eggs and cheese.
Tom
was enjoying his life in Cumbria climbing at weekends, casting pearls
of wisdom to his pupil’s mid-week, heading out to sea on rescue
missions, but an accident on Dow Crag in the early 1950’s shut down
his climbing for a while. Fortunately he had just acquired his first
nylon rope; tying on this directly with a bowline knot, and with
Frank Monkhouse as his second he was leading the classic, ‘Eliminate
A’ climb on Dow Crag. Shod in basket ball boots all went well until
above the Rocher Perches crux, but on the upper reaches of this route
which become vague to follow, Tom lost the usual line and continued
ascending up previously unclimbed rock. But as he was moving to gain
easier ground, pulling up on a handhold it suddenly shattered,
precipitating a long fall.
Fortunately
there were other climbers at the crag that day, and after lowering to
the base of the cliff they carried him down to Coniston on an
improvised stretcher, a bed spring from the nearby Barrow Boys Hut at
the side of Goats Water.
An ambulance then took him to Workington
Hospital, where his injuries were treated; a laceration to the scalp,
fractured ribs and an ankle, with sprains to both. He had fallen over
40 feet, and his brand new nylon rope was shredded for almost 20
feet. Tom was always careful about spending large amounts on gear,
preferring to kit himself for his outdoor clothes at the Charity
Shops, but he confessed the purchase of a nylon rope was one of his
wisest choices despite its then high price by the standards of the
day!
After
serving, quite some years at the same school, in 1955 Tom took a
sabbatical to take part in a Duncan Carse led expedition to South
Georgia. Younger readers can be forgiven for not instantly
recognising the name, but he was radio’s ‘Dick Barton Special
Agent’ which attracted 15 million listeners each evening. Carse was
an unusual mixture of polar explorer and radio actor. Over four
southern summers between 1951 and 1957 he organised, and led the
South Georgia Survey.
This sub-antarctic island is covered in
glaciers and mountains, and records a fascinating history, including
a first navigation around and exploration by Captain Cook in the 18th
century. It is also the island reached by Ernest Shackleton in his
dramatic rescue journey in 1916, and it featured much in the
engagements surrounding the Falkland’s War in 1982.Even today it
can only be approached by a long sea journey, lying in the South
Atlantic Ocean 1390kms South East of the Falkland’s, so in 1955 it
was a remote destination with uncharted fjords, glaciers and
mountains, replete with fantastic wild life breeding on its beaches.
And now it is once again being keenly visited by climbers, most
recently by Stephen Venables and Chris Watts, the former a frequent
visitor having made the first ascent of Mount Carse 2300m in 1990.
Tom was one of three mountaineers recruited for the 1955/6 party, the
other two being Louis Baume and Johnny Cunningham; their task was to
get the surveyors into safe positions in the mountains, and they
managed a lot of travelling on ski and some technical independent
climbing. Tom departed South Georgia with a glacier named after him,
and he told me an anecdote about the Dick Barton connection, whose
two side kicks in his nightly adventures were ‘Jock’ and ‘Snowy’.
Interviewed by the media on his return about this, for Cunnigham a
Scot was obviously ‘Jock’ and Tom they decided must be ‘Snowy!’
An
interesting fact about Tom’s life is he always ‘moved on’, and
in 1961 he succeeded John Lagoe as the warden of Eskdale Outward
Bound School, where he remained for 7 years. Somehow despite the fact
that Tom was a unique kind of English revolutionary, he fitted this
post with such distinction that he remained, into old age someone the
Outward Bound movement embraced for his sage advice and support. He
was a founder member of the Mountain Leader Training Board, and with
John Jackson he wrote the tract of its award scheme, which by the
time when I was at the BMC and we took over its administration, it
had become one of the largest such training schemes in British sport.
But
Tom was to move on again in 1968, back to Yorkshire as an adviser to
the West Yorkshire Education authority, where his essays and ideas
about the development of outdoor education won him wide respect. His
attempt to ‘Bridge the Gap’ between educationalists and amateur
climbers set out in such format, was published in both ‘Mountain
Magazine’ and the anthology, ‘The Games Climber’s Play’. On
one occasion he invited me to speak at a Conference he had organised
for teachers involved in Outdoor Education, he posited me with the
task of preparing and reading a paper on ‘The History of Mountain
Literature’. Somehow I blagged my way through this assignment;
which was typical of Tom who always expected students and
acquaintances to meet his own level of attainment.
And
his next appointment in 1973 illustrates this in spades when he
became the Dean of Bingley Teacher Training College; which with his
encouragement became during that decade a numero uno place for
climbers to study, for his students included Gill Price, Jill
Lawrence, Pete Livesey, Pete Gomersall and Bonny Masson. In that era
he and I were both members of the Plas y Brenin Management Committee,
and living down the hill from Bingley in Guiseley I used to drive up
there, to meet up and journey to North Wales together. These were
some of the most entertaining, amusing journeys I have ever made. On
one occasion Tom elicited to me his thoughts about ‘The Sermon on
the Mount’. I wish I had then a tape recorder in my car for it was
of such worth it should have been recorded, and I guess for the
reader to realise how amusing Tom could be, the sparring between Ken
Wilson, and Price was a prime example?, they were two outstanding
figures in their own milieu.
Original Image : Outward Bound Trust
When
Alan Blackshaw became BMC President in 1973 we decided on the need to
review the future needs and development of the Council, and so a
‘Future Policy Committee’ was formed which included both Ken,
then editing Mountain Magazine, and Tom. To report that these two
sparked off each other is true, for as Tom was later to observe about
Wilson ‘that he was a passionate defender of a climber’s right to
kill himself in his own way!’ We used to hold these meetings in
Pubs up and down the country, but on occasion in more salubrious
surroundings, such as The Army and Navy Club in London, close to Hyde
Park.
In one of our discussions held there on ‘The future of
Mountain Training’ , Ken and Tom became engaged in animated
discussion, and Wilson who on occasion could get very exercised in
such debate, suddenly jumped up and shouted out loudly ‘ Climbing
is all about dying!’. One wondered what the ex-military types at
the bar made of this outburst, I thought ‘crikey’ it might cause
one of them to choke over their gin and tonics. Tom’s riposte to
this was classic and typical of his gentle strain of humour; ‘Well
Ken if that is the case, you cannot have been too active yourself!’
Tom
was not a bureaucratic type of Principal, and he was always planning
some journey or trip himself. With the famous Swiss climber,
avalanche expert Andre Roch, and mountain guide who was one of his
friends he made a ski traverse of the Alps, with another friend
George Spenseley he made a multi-day canoe journey down the Hanbury
and Thelon rivers in Northern Canada. He was always keen to get out
for a climb and when he became President of the BMC in 1982-1985 we
climbed together in Wales, the Peak District and The Lake District.
And for some years, even as the ageing process began to catch up with
him, he led trips in the USA and did some instructing work for
Outward Bound in Southern Africa.
Retiring
to the Lake District he lived first outside Keswick then in a small
cottage in Threlkeld, for his was a complex personal life, married
with two sons, Gareth and Trevor (both climbers) he had a partner, an
accomplished musician, a professional harpist Jean with whom he
shared his later years. In 2000 he published an unusual
autobiography, ‘Travail So Gladly Spent’ which is more a book of
thoughtful essays than a life history, but I recommend anyone who has
not done so to read it, for Tom’s character as a gentle and amusing
man shines throughout its pages. I write the word gentle with some
care, for I did see him once roused in temper. When Tom became the
BMC President we were faced with a vastly changing scene over a flood
of potential new members, many starting out to climb at the large
number of climbing walls then appearing throughout the country.
The
BMC had always been in truth before that an affiliation of climbing
clubs, but most of these new tyros were unconnected. As they moved
outside and started to travel abroad to climb, there was a demand to
access BMC services, particularly insurance. We decided to introduce
a new membership category to help them to do this, but some of the
elderly patrician leaders of the major climbing clubs opposed this.
We had a rather fractious meeting with some of them at an AGM, but
Tom roused to fiery speech took no heed and eventually won them over;
however it was agreed that such individuals would not become voting
members, this was changed during the late Mark Vallance’s
Presidency, some decades later.
Besides
his book of essays during his last decades Tom was painting his
beloved Lakeland hills. One of my proudest possessions is one of
these, a panorama view of Scafell which I have hung on my living room
wall. He also thoroughly recorded his life for the British Library
Archive in oral form entitled ‘I’m a stranger here myself’. The
last time I was with him in Threlkeld he was 93 years old and as I
said goodbye, he was just leaving to traverse the Cat Bells ridge. He
died in July 2013 at 94 years of age. Posthumously some of his
paintings and artefacts from his long life were exhibited, entitled
‘Inspiring Adventure’ at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, late
in 2015 into 2016. I will finish by a quote from Tom who when invited
to explain his fascination with his time spent in Antarctic
exploration; he declared it was.... ‘in pursuit of life’s simple
satisfactions and the succour to be found in the wilderness and
mountains’.
