ME AND THE LADS I guess
I never told you about me and the lads, did I? Well, I mean, it was
all so long ago — back in the fifties, like, when we thought the
world was young, and really it was only us.... What? Oh, me and the
lads . . . no, we weren't a club really. We just used to go out in
the hills together at weekends, y'know, and meet most nights at
Sullivan's Cafe. Out on the Bolton Road . . . what? No, they pulled
it down years ago... . There was the four of us went round together,
like. Me, Big Harry, Sorrowful Jones and Toddy. He were the quiet
one, Toddy, but Big Harry — well, he was big and blonde and noisy,
with a bushy beard like Father Neptune. It was him as picked me up on
the Preston by-pass, as then was, did I tell you? Well, maybe I will
some day. Got me started climbing, did Big Harry. Sorrowful Jones?
Ah, now there was one of the lads, if ever there was one. Small and
scruffy,
We sat at our usual
table in Sullivan's Cafe, idly eating lumps of sugar from the bowl,
and ignoring the malevolent glances of Sullivan. He was a bit put out
because his wife had returned unexpectedly from London one evening a
week back and had caught Fanny Cranshaw doing overtime. She cut up
dead rough about it, too, by all accounts; but she always did strike
me as a narrow minded bint, and anyhow, as we pointed out to
Sullivan, who was to say what she herself had been up to in the gay
Metropolis? He asked us not to mention it. The last lump of sugar
had gone and Big Harry was just about to lean over to the next table
for another bowl, when the swing door opened to admit two of the
roughest characters in the business — any business — Louis the
Bum, and his dark familiar, The Bat. In the normal way of things, I
am the last person to criticise the failings of my fellow men, but I
have to admit that Louis and The Bat were a couple of uncouth sods.
For a start, they looked uncouth: small with dark greasy hair which
tumbled about their ears and ferret like faces which even a
magistrate wouldn't trust. They looked like brothers, terrible
twins, for they dressed alike in black leather jackets decorated with
brass studs, and black jeans of an outrageous slimness, in the
pockets of which they invariably hooked their thumbs.
In point of
fact they were in no way related, except in spirit, although they had
shared many vicissitudes and several mistresses together. A gentler
age would have called them louts, and I always felt that had they
lived in medieval times they would have been the boon companions of
Richard Crookback, and had a hand in clobbering those kids in the
Tower. They were not prepossessing and young coppers were known to
avoid them. Yet Louis and The Bat had their shiny side like most
human beings: joined together by a nylon rope, they were one of the
finest rock-climbing teams in the country. Because of this they were
tolerated, and their opinions carried great force. "What you
been doin', then, Louis?" Asked Harry. Meaning we hadn't seen
them around for a while. "Me an' the Bat 'ere, we been walkin'
these last few weekends. S'right, ain't it, Bat?" "S'right,"
confirmed his shadow. Harry looked shocked, as did we all. "You
don't mean walkin' — on foot as it were?" He demanded
incredulously.
"Yeah, well. This bloke reckoned proper walkin' were very important; an he 'ad a lot o' little pictures showin"ow it should be done, like." "An we was doin' it all wrong," said The Bat. "Funny ain't it? I been walkin' ever since I were a kid, an' then after all these years I find I been doin' it all wrong." Louis gave The Bat a withering look and asked who was telling the tale? The Bat said Louis was, so Louis requested permission to continue, and added that if he had any further interruptions he would place a well aimed boot in The Bat's groin. The Bat, who valued that part of his anatomy, fell silent. "There's just as much skill in walkin' as there is in climbin'," Louis the Bum continued. "Only it's different, o' course. It's a question of , rhythmical balance an' conservation of energy, an all that balls. Once yer gets the 'ang of it, yer can do bloody long walks an' set up records an' things." "'Ow many records 'ave you set up then, Louis?" Asked Sorrowful Jones, tongue in cheek. "Well, we ain't set up any as yet," admitted Louis, "'cos we only been at it a few times, see? An' anyhow, its the technique I'm interested in, mate, not bloody records."
Sorrowful nodded in mock sympathy. "Competition don't do nobody any good, mate," he said. Personally I thought Sorrowful was asking for trouble, taking the mickey out of Louis the Bum like that, but Sorrowful knew his man. Louis never rumbled. The Bat pointed out the time on Sullivan's plastic clock. "What about them two judies, then, Louis?" He asked. Louis looked at his own watch and nodded." We're off," he announced. "Gotta see a coupla tarts. See yer." "See yer." we replied in chorus. "Did you ever 'ear such a load o' bull in all your life?" demanded Toddy, when they had gone. Big Harry looked thoughtful and stroked his voluminous yellow beard. "I dunno," he said slowly. "I reckon there's summat in this walkin' racket."
"Come off it! It's
a load o' balls. Who can't walk up to a crag an' back? Apart from
which, who wants to walk at all?" Toddy looked disgusted at the
thought. Big Harry shifted his bulk back on his chair so that the
legs creaked ominously. Like Sullivan said: he wished Harry would
sit some-where else for a change because no one chair was designed to
take such a constant hammering, but Harry pointed out that he
couldn't move because Sorrowful Jones and Toddy had a side bet of
five bob as to when the chair would collapse. Big Harry said, "I
been thinkin' about this for some time: Louis the Bum has just
brought to a head the whole problem, as yer might say." "An'
what problem is that?" asked Sorrowful Jones, who was something
of an expert on problems, being one himself. "Our attitude,
that's what mate; our attitude. We reckon we're mountaineers, but
we're nothin' of the sort — just bloody rock technicians. We do
buggar all but climb rocks an' even then its rocks what are near a
road like Borrowdale or Llanberis. I tell you this, mates: we've been
turnin' the cathedrals of the earth into soaped poles!" "You
read that somewhere," accused Sorrowful Jones. "So what?
It's true ain't it 'Ow often do we pause to consider the beauty of
our surroundings? Never, mate! We get stuck on some bit o' rock an'
all we sees is dirty cracks an' grooves, lengths o' rope an' metal
pegs. Do we ever think o' the Eternal Hills? Do we faggin' hell! "All
we thinks of is how the next pitch is a layback an' we wish we'd
never started the bloody climb in the first place. "So we end up
as bloody good rock-climbers, maybe, but somewhere along the road we
lose our real purpose." Harry's outburst shook us rigid.
Sorrowful Jones said," You gone all philosophical, ain't you mate? Been watchin' B.B.C. telly, or summat?" "Then there's the other side of it," continued Harry, ignoring him. "What about when we go to Skye? Walkin' an' route findin' become major problems in a wild place like Skye." If Big Harry's professed love of natural beauty cut no ice with the lads, his last remarks went home. The fact was, we had all agreed to take a few days off work at Whitsun, and by combining them with the Bank Holiday, arrange to have a full week in the Cuillins; that northern mecca of British climbers. None of us had ever visited the misty Hebridean island and it was an omission which was keenly felt; partly because of the reputation of the place but mostly, I think, because of Piss Eyed Pete. Pete had been there— once — and he never missed an opportunity of telling us so, since modesty is not Pete's dominant characteristic. We had only to mention some obscure crag or mountain for him to say, "Well, it's alright I suppose, but it don't compare with the Cuillin o' Skye. You lot ain't never been to the Cuillin, 'ave yer? Believe me, mate, the Cuillin are the only real mountains in Britain." The inference being, of course, that anyone who hadn't been there could in no way be regarded as a real mountaineer.
So what with the visit to Skye on our minds and
everything, Big Harry's point was well taken. "You may be right
an' all," Sorrowful Jones conceded. "The Cuillins is a
pretty rough place. I remember Paddy the Wop once come down on the
wrong side o' the main ridge in a mist, an' e 'ad to walk
over twenty miles back to 'is tent. 'E were bloody 'ungry an all by
the time he got back, seein' as 'ow 'e dropped 'is butties down the
Cioch Slab in the mornin'." Harry welcomed the support. "Well
there it is, ain't it?" he demanded. "I reckon we ought to
practise this walkin' caper."
Between you and me,
there are walks and there are walks, when it comes to a question as
to whether one is a good walker or not. Like Toddy said, anyone can
toddle up to the foot of a crag and back, if it isn't too far and the
weather is right, and nearly everyone can reach the top of a hill
without undue peril. I base these surmises on the yobs one encounters
from time to time in such elevated positions as the summit of Ben
Nevis and the Snowdon Hotel. But not everyone can do a walk. Walks,
in these present times, have become things of contest between man and
mountain, and man and time. It is no longer sufficient to stroll
around the hills: today a walk —a proper walk— is a challenge as
stern in its own way as the stiffest rock climb. There was a time,
and not so very long ago either, when the admission of inadequacy in
the mountains was contained in the phrase, "I'm only a walker",
meaning that the speaker felt himself unable to comment on the mad
rich world of the mountains in the same way that the more romantic
rock-climbers did. Rock-climbers tended to look down on walkers
(although they would never admit it) and say, "Well, each to his
own pleasure old chap," when what they really meant was "The
poor sod. The poor inferior sod." But times change.
The bloke
who goes clanking up Borrowdale with a hundred krabs dangling from
his waist and two miles of rope round his shoulders is probably a
novice out to climb Brown Slabs, whilst the youngster in training
shoes, who looks as though he hasn't yet begun to shave, is like as
not the newest hard man. You just can't tell. So when a bloke today
says modestly, "I'm only a walker," you look at him
sideways, because his idea of a quiet weekend is likely to be a
double traverse of the Welsh Three Thousand Footers or a quick run
along the main ridge of the Cuillins. There are more walkers today
than climbers, it seems to me, and you meet them everywhere — on
top of Napes Needle, for example. They are a remarkable breed these
modern walkers, with adhesive feet and the stamina of a yak. Never
under any circumstances offer to go for a walk with one, or you are
likely to be convalescent for the following two weeks. They
concentrate on accepted routes done within acceptable times, the
records for which make you feel slightly sick.
We decided to make our
first serious attempt at walking one cold February day, when there
was a sprinkling of snow on the Pennine moors and the clouds drooped
like veils of lead. Big Harry knew a bloke who did a lot of walking —
a little chap called Amen Smith, who was as bandy as a cowboy and
looked as though he couldn't walk across the road, let alone the
hills, although in fact he could move like a chamois with a
thunderflash up its arse. He had told Harry that one of the best
walks was over the moors between Marsden in Yorkshire and Edale in
Derbyshire. It was on Amen's recommendation, therefore, that we
rolled into Marsden at 8 a.m., cold and sleepy, with Sorrowful Jones
moaning away and a whole hunk of wild moor between us and our
ultimate destination. There is something about the hills of Wales or the Lakes which
makes them seem friendly to man, so long as he doesn't try to mess
them about. Even in Scotland, where things are on an altogether
bigger scale, there exists an atmosphere of muted challenge, as
though the hills knew that man wanted to play on them and were not
altogether adverse to the idea. But in the Pennines; in the bleak,
wind swept, grough riven peat hags of the Pennines, man is an
intruder. These are hills without emotion, without compassion. They
have neither form nor beauty and they don't give a damn.
Their sombre
grit begrimed faces betray no trace of the eternal challenge between
man and mountains and yet you get the message alright: their vastness
mocks and says Put one step wrong here, mate, and we'll kill you. And
they would, too. Our own route for the day ahead lay over three
identifiable lumps of moor: Black Hill, Bleaklow, and Kinder Scout,
separated by deep valleys. At one time, there existed four pubs,
equidistant along the line of march, and some do say that it is for
this reason that the walk was originated. That the whole thing was
nothing more nor less than a sophisticated pub crawl. Such is
progress, however, that the first two pubs have been pulled down; not
surprising really, when you learn that they were owned by the local
water board and therefore in direct competition, as it were. The
first few miles from Marsden lay along a good cart track by the side
of reservoirs and we made very rapid progress. Even Sorrowful Jones
ceased to complain; the air was crisp, the incline gentle, and we
exerted ourselves just sufficiently to keep warm. It was a piece of
cake, we said, and we liked walking, we said. Then we hit Black Hill.
The track vanished and there was nothing but the white, snow speckled
acres of moor rising to an indefinite summit.
The going was rough and
boggy, and we were bothered by the deep groughs where surface streams
had cut into the peat. Our speed slackened, and we cursed as we
stumbled forwards and up. The summit never seemed to get any nearer,
and to cap our misfortune, the leaden sky turned a deep violet. "I
don't like it, 'Arry," gasped Sorrowful Jones, crawling out of a
grough. "It's gonna snow." And for once he was dead right.
Hardly had he spoken when the first fine flurry of white needles came
swirling down and within minutes we were trapped in a white-out. I
don't think any of us had ever been in a white-out before, and the
experience is not one to bolster self-confidence, especially if, like
us, you haven't got much idea of your exact position. The world as we
knew it simply vanished. Land and sky blended into a diaphanous
whole so that you could not tell where the one ended and the other
began, and we stepped forward into a never ending wall of vapour. It
was a dream-world, a nightmare, where there was no future and no
past, where the only substance was self and the rest was the white
dawn of nothing.
We stopped, huddling together into a tight group,
the snow falling with sinister gentleness all round. " 'Ere's a
fine how dye do," complained Big Harry, blowing into his gloved
hands. "What the faggin' Hell do we do now?" "We get
off these faggin'moors a bit sharp-ish," replied Sorrowful in a
gloomy voice, "before we all dies of exposure. Where the hell
are we, anyhow?" That, of course, was the nub of the matter. We
had concentrated on picking our tortuous way through the peat hags
towards the summit of the hill, and we
had never thought of checking our location on the map. Apart from the
knowledge that we were somewhere in the vicinity of Black Hill, we
were lost. Big Harry pulled out a map from his anorak pocket and
Toddy surprised us all by contributing a compass which he had
pinched for the day from his kid brother who was in the Cubs, and we
tried to combine the two with our inadequate knowledge of navigation.
But without landmarks to guide our futile efforts it was hopeless
from the start. We gave Toddy back his compass, telling him what his
kid brother could do with it, and Harry put back his map, all soggy
and wet with snow. We had been standing still for five minutes and
our feet had begun to freeze. We decided to press on, regardless. For
ages we trod the Slough of Despond which is the summit of Black Hill.
It is aptly named: black ooze, positively primeval in concept,
squelched over our boot-tops at every step until in the end we didn't
care anymore.
Then, joyously, the land began to descend. For better
or worse we seemed to be entering some kind of upland valley;
whether or not it lay in the right direction we neither knew nor
cared. All we wished for at that moment was escape from the cursed
moors and the white-out. I think we panicked. Soon we were walking
along an ill defined sheep track in a narrow defile. The white-out
vanished as we descended, although it still continued to snow, and
even though our vision was limited to a few yards it restored our
self confidence to be able to see again and regain contact with
reality. The track improved at every yard, and a quick check with the
compass showed us that it did indeed run in the right general
direction, which was a piece of good luck. "If only the snow
would stop, we could see where we was," Harry shouted over his
shoulder at us. "I reckon we must be in one o' them side valleys
near Holme Moss." Toddy agreed. "The compass sez we're
headin' south" he affirmed, "so I reckon you're right,
mate. This track should lead us down into Crowden." "The
compass don't mean nothin'," said Sorrowful Jones gloomily.
"This valley could bend in the next half mile, an' then where
are we?" "Up the creek without a paddle, mate,"
replied Harry, effectively ending the conversation. The valley began
to widen until we could no longer see the opposite bank because of
the snowflakes which were still swirling down. It was obvious,
though, that it was a vale of some size, for it boasted stone walls
and fields. It had about it a faintly familiar air. "I gotta
feelin' I been 'ere before." Big Harry commented, with a puzzled
air on his face.
"Ello, then. What's this?" Through the
snow-mist there had loomed up before our path a mound of earth some
six feet high and stretching away into the dim distance. It was
bordered by a trench as deep as the mound was high, and containing
some rusted wood and iron contraptions. It was not the sort of thing
one expects to find on the Derbyshire moors, or anywhere else, in our
experience. "Maybe it's for catchin'rabbits wholesale,"
suggested Sorrowful Jones, pondering the enigma. "One thing's
for sure though —some poor bastard will fall into that trench one
day and break 'is bloody neck." We walked along the side of the
trench and entered upon a country straight out of Alice in
Wonderland. All about us, for as far as the
snow would allow us to
see there were more of these strange constructions, arranged in
roughly parallel lines. The valley looked as though it had just
witnessed a convention of mad archaeologists. Then the snow stopped,
suddenly and without warning, as snow does in mountains. We stopped
too, in amazement. Bang! Bang! Ping! Its a funny thing, you know,
but even if you've never heard the sound of small-arms fire in your
life before, you still know when some buggar is firing at you. And
somebody was firing at us.
Simultaneously, we all four dived into the
nearest trench and lay there quaking. "The bloody rifle range!"
exploded Harry, when we eventually picked up enough courage to sit
up. "You know — the one in the valley that leads up to Laddow
Rocks. The Army uses it every Sunday; an' we've walked right into the
bastard!" "No wonder the valley looked familiar," said
Toddy. "We must 'aye passed the Range a 'undred times on our way
to the rocks." A sudden thought struck him and he grinned.
"Anyhow, the old compass was right lads: this valley leads
straight to Crowden." "If we ever get out alive,"
added Sorrowful Jones. After the first, frightening fusillade, the
firing stopped, although none of us volunteered to peer over the
edge of the trench to see why. Instead, we sat tight and began to
prepare some Nescafe. The idea of looking for a better hole did not
appeal to us, one bit, and anyway, our hole was comfortable enough
as these things go. In fact, we were just beginning to feel at home
when the officer in charge of the shooting party arrived. Apparently
he had spotted us through his field glasses; too late to prevent the
first burst of fire by his trigger happy platoon, but not too late to
give us a bollacking. He was very annoyed, you could see that at a
glance, but he was wasting his breath on the lads. He was a young
twat of about twenty with a little moustache and a Sam Browne belt
you could have seen to shave in. He stood on the edge of the trench
looking down on us and he had a little cane which he flicked angrily
in his
leather gloved hands,
for all the world like a schoolmaster who has discovered some juniors
smoking in the toilets.
"What do you people think you are doing
down there?" he demanded aggresively, in that peculiar accent
which seems to afflict all regular army officers. "Shelterin'
from you lot," replied Big Harry. "Don't be impertinent! I
want to know what you are playing at." His cane flicked
violently in tune with his temper. Big Harry stood up and eyed him
severely. "We're not playin' at anythin', mate," he
replied. "It's you lot what are playin' soldiers. Is there a war
on or summat?" The subaltern went livid. "Get out of
there!" he stormed. "This is War Office Property, and you
are trespassing. Get out ! D'ye hear?!" "Keep yer shirt
on," Harry said quietly, packing away the petrol stove. "We're
goin'." We scrambled out of the trench. Big Harry towered above
the officer and smiled down at him sweetly. "There's just one
thing, mate ..." he asked. "And what's that?" "Which
side is winnin'?" The subaltern lost all control over his
emotions. Waving his stick around like a demented bell-boy he let
fly a string of oaths which even Sorrowful Jones thought was first
class. "Get the faggin' hell out of here or I'll report you to
the Major!" He ended. "And I'll tell the vicar," added
Harry.
We ambled away, with his curses still ringing in our ears.
"He's only a young bloke, ain't 'e? But 'e ain't 'alf got a
marvellous command of English," commented Sorrowful Jones,
wistfully. "I wonder what 'e is?" "That mate,"
explained Big Harry, "is an officer an' a gentleman." We walked down into the
Longendale valley, where the huge reservoirs flashed in the new found
sunlight. Our misadventures on Black Hill and the rifle-range had
cost us remarkably little in the way of time, and although
we were well behind our original over optimistic schedule, we felt
confident of success. Black Hill lay behind us: all we had to do now
was cross Bleaklow and Kinder, and with the weather markedly on the
mend, we felt that the job was as good as accomplished. At Crowden
railway station we paused to eat our sandwiches and make our
postponed brew of Nescafe. Before us, Bleaklow rose in one great two
thousand foot sweep of heather, with the sun glinting on the wet
rocks of the numerous gritstone tors which are such a feature of the
hill.
Away on our right, a fine ridge of grit was etched against the
winter sky and pointed the way to the top. After the ordeals we had
suffered that day, the ridge came as blessed relief. Here was
something which we understood — rock —and although it wasn't
steep enough to be called climbing in the proper sense, after the
miry wastes of Black Hill it was a sheer delight. It could have gone
on forever, that ridge, but it didn't; within half an hour it
debouched us onto the summit plateau of Bleaklow. "Hell fire!"
ejaculated Sorrowful Jones, meaning who would have thought that there
could be a place so vast and utterly barren as that which stretched
ahead? As far as the eye could see there was nothing but miles of
undulating moors rising to a whaleback of a skyline. No hummock of
curious shape, no startling tors of gritstone, nothing to break the
awful monotony of the great plateau. It was truly the most God
forsaken piece of country we had ever seen. "Well, it's flat, at
any rate," said Big Harry. "We should zoom across this
lot." But it wasn't and we didn't. What from a distance looked
all smooth and level turned out in reality to be as rugged an area as
you could find in the whole of Britain. The entire plateau was as
riven with groughs as a gorgonzola cheese is with blue veins.
Some of
these ditches were large, some were small, but all contorted and
twisted like a million snakes, crossing and recrossing each other
every few yards. There was nothing for it but to push forwards, in
and out, up and down, like poor
bloody infantry of the
First World War scrambling to the attack across the shell holes of No
Man's Land. Time and our energies wasted together, yet the skyline
seemed to grow no closer. As we advanced the groughs seemed to get
bigger. There were some. I recall vividly which seemed thirty feet
deep: great canyons of peat, the crossing of which was extremely
laborious. In the end, we abandoned all pretence of method; simply
falling down one side of the grough and scrambling as best we could
up the other. Conversation was at a discount, but we all had a
feeling of panic; a feeling that we were trapped on that labyrinthine
moor. The walk we were supposed to be tackling was utterly forgotten;
degenerated into a frantic struggle to escape from Bleaklow, lest we
leave our exhausted bodies forever in some unknown grough.
The short
day of winter began to draw to a close and as the light faded the air
grew cold. The peat, once soft and cushion like, started to crackle
beneath our steps as it was gripped by the night frosts. In
desperation we quickened our pace — if pace it could be called
—although each and every one of us was dead tired. How long had we
been on that cursed moor — two hours, three? It seemed a lifetime.
Then the groughs ceased, suddenly, and we knew we had at last
breasted the crest of the hill. As the final rose tints of the sun
died on the skyline we struck across a narrow, deep valley, and
inside a quarter of an hour we were free of Bleaklow, standing on a
metalled road. We leant against a small stone bridge, buggered.
"Well, we made it lads." gasped Harry. "This 'ere's
the Snake Pass." "All we gotta do now is cross
Kinder Scout," said Sorrowful Jones gloomily. He got no reply.
When at last we were sufficiently rested we set off down the pass
towards the point where a small track leads off it over the great
massif of Kinder. We were now hours behind schedule and dog-tired.
Nobody spoke, all our thoughts being concentrated on the agony ahead.
We had gone rather more than a mile along
the road when we saw a
blaze of lights in the trees which fringed the left hand side of the
road. It turned out to be an attractively lit white building with big
lattice windows through which we could discern luxury, warmth and the
magnetic clink of ale glasses. We had reached the Snake Inn. Big
Harry halted. We all halted. "It's another four or five mile
over Kinder ..." Big Harry began, his voice uncertain. "We'll
never do it in the dark," added Sorrowful. Big Harry sighed as
he pushed open the door to the Bar. "They didn't ought to put a
pub in a place like this," he said savagely,"it weakens a
bloke's resolution." We sank into luxurious chairs, pints in our
hands, and just let the ache drain out of our tired bodies. For five
whole minutes we just sprawled there, eyes closed in sheer bliss, and
then we took good long draughts of the excellent ale. "Why do we
do it?" asked Toddy, stretching his legs against cramp. "Why
do we bloody well do it?" "Because we're faggin' stupid,
mate, that's why," replied Big Harry. "But it don't 'alf
make the ale taste good, don't it?"
Walt Unsworth 1978. Illustrations Ivor Cumberpatch.
