Earl Denham's Confession

Earlier this year we featured Canadian writer, Lindsay Elm's '29/5/53...A short story; the first part of an intended trilogy surrounding the Everest activities of little known Canadian mountaineer- Earl Denham.The story continues...........

It’s crazy! I’m as nervous as when I was a teenager on my first date, but I’m not going on a date. I am meeting a fellow climber to chat about a mountain, albeit a mountain that had a secret buried under a rock on its snowy summit. A secret that I have had to keep concealed since my time on the summit - a secret that has the potential to change the course of mountaineering history.

Earl Denman greets me at the door. We are about the same age, but he is a little shorter and more muscular. His ruddy complexion is from time in the African sun, but his most striking feature is his eyes. They have that faraway look, the look of a dreamer. After our introductions Denman leads me into his study. The teak floor squeaks under my shoes and sounds like the crunching of cramponed boots on wind-packed ice. He asks me if I would like a coffee or a beer. I’m hot, my shirt is sticking to my back and my armpits are dripping like an icicle melting in the sun. A nice cold beer would hit the spot I tell him.

Denman disappears and while he is out I look around for some evidence of his climb: a photograph, a prayer flag, a piece of equipment or maybe even a rock, but there is no hint of Mount Everest in the entire room. After a minute he returns with two bottles of beer covered with a fine coating of frost. They remind me of the rime covering the inside of my tent on the mornings while on Everest. He opens the bottles and I salute him with ‘to Everest’ and we sit back in our chairs.

Denman tells me he hasn’t heard from Tenzing since his ascent of Everest and asks me how he is doing with all the hullabaloo the climb has created. Denman says that Tenzing always said he was just a humble Sherpa! He admits he is concerned that Tenzing might struggle with all the public excitement. I let Denman know Tenzing is coping fine and taking it all in stride. He then asks me a few questions about the climb genuinely interested in my experience on Mount Everest. Once I have finished my story Denman folds his arms, reaches up with his right hand and strokes his chin. The rasping effect on the stubble is the only sound infringing upon the silence. “I understand you would like to know a little bit more about my attempt with Tenzing and Ang Dawa in 1947.”

There is another pause as he takes a drink of his beer, the frosting now dripping down the side of the bottle and moistening his hand. “You must understand that there are two versions; the official version which I have written into a book that is at the publishers as we talk and the unofficial version. As you are probably aware my attempt was illegal and therefore the unofficial version has a different conclusion from the story being told in the book. The conclusion may or may not surprise you, although, if my judgment is correct, you have an inkling of the conclusion, an outcome most people wouldn’t believe.”

 

Denman pauses and looks me in the eye. Is he searching for a reaction? I look around the room and note the sparse surroundings. Denman is not a collector and appears to live a simple life. I can’t help but wonder what Denman’s motivation is for climbing Mount Everest. Obviously it is not for glory! Is it for spiritual reasons, or is it for the physical challenge? I think back to all the mountains that I have climbed and what is important to me. Getting to the summit was the ultimate end, but it only meant something to me. However, Mount Everest is different it is the highest bloody mountain on this planet. Some say it is the closest physical point to heaven! Since westerners first sighted the mountain many men have aspired to reach its summit. Whether Denman chooses to tell me his story or not is up to him. I shift my weight conscious of my unease. I reach over and grasp my beer enjoying the effects the cold ambrosia has on my parched throat - soothing and refreshing. I’m reminded of the sweetened lemon juice I had when Tenzing gave me his thermos on the descent to our high camp on Everest and the invigorating effect it had. With a slight nod of my head and a subtle flick of my eyelids I say, “An inkling, yes!”

Denman leans back in his chair and begins his story. “After the first attempt where we failed to reach the North Col all three of us came back down the mountain to the Buddhist Monastery at Rongbuk fully intent on packing up and heading back to India. The cold temperatures and the incessant wind were demoralizing and we had had enough. After a few days of rest and breathing thicker air at the Rongbuk Monastery, we began feeling better. We noticed that higher on the mountain the wind was diminishing and the plume of snow streaming off the summit had lessened considerably. Tenzing woke up the next morning announcing that the mountain gods had visited him in his dreams that night. They told him that the next week would be a good time to be on Mount Everest. It is a well-known fact that Buddhists believe in auspices years, weeks and days. I didn’t need much persuading and for Ang Dawa and Tenzing, who grew up in the shadow of Mount Everest, the pull was stronger than any force on earth. We decided to give the summit one more attempt. We spent the day re-packing and arranging our loads.”

“The next morning we moved back into the upper Rongbuk Valley. Rivulets that had previously been frozen during the day were now trickling as the temperatures increased. The nights were still cold but we had made some refinements to our sleeping bags to improve their efficiency. The next day we moved up onto the North Col to the site of the old Camp IV. I thought I might find some evidence of the previous camps from the 1920’s, but there was nothing to be seen. Everything was either blown away or buried under the snow.”

“We all slept well, however, Tenzing was starting to cough. It was a cough that sounded worse than the cough we all usually get at altitude. His lungs were making a rattling noise. My stoic companion was not going to let a little cough stop him so we packed up and moved on. We made steady progress reaching the old Camp V site faster than we had anticipated. There was still only a slight breeze and the temperature wasn’t as low as it had been 12 days ago. The next day Tenzing’s cough was a lot worse, but he was determined to continue so we moved up higher and found the site of the old Camp VI at 27,000 feet just below the yellow band. We had to spend an hour leveling the site to accommodate our tent and when we got the tent pitched we were absolutely exhausted. We lay in the tent for a long time before we had the energy to start melting snow. The wind had increased in its intensity, but was still not as bad as we had experienced previously at lower elevations. Although not religious, I thought if there are Gods who dwell on the mountain then I was going to pray to them to be kind to us for one more day.”

“That evening we discussed the route for tomorrow. Tenzing suggested we follow Edward Norton and Howard Somervell’s 1924 summit bid route across the face to the great couloir. Tenzing surmised that by staying off the ridge we would be sheltered from the wind and we would avoid the second rock step which was the great unknown. Although it had been looked at through a telescope, no one had reached it on any of the earlier attempts or knew whether it could be climbed. George Mallory had always advocated the ridge route. This would require climbing the second step, a feature that was considered to be the crux of the climb. Although it didn’t appear to be terribly high, we didn’t want to reach it and find we couldn’t climb it. Norton states in his expedition book, he was sure that given more time he could have reached the summit. He wrote that they lost time in the morning when the thermos of water, that they had melted the evening before, had leaked during the night so they had to fetch and melt more snow for breakfast delaying the start.”

“That night Ang Dawa and I slept fitfully, but poor Tenzing received no rest due to his constant coughing. When I awoke at 4:30 a.m. Tenzing announced that he was unfit to go on. I was devastated because I considered Tenzing’s knowledge and experience critical to our success. In true Sherpa spirit he told Ang Dawa and me to go on without him and he would stay at the camp and have a drink ready for us when we returned.”

This made me think about Tenzing on our summit day last year. At 4:30 a.m. he must have been silently remembering this same day six years earlier when he had sent Ang Dawa and Denman off towards the summit without him. I can only imagine how heart wrenching it was! This time he was healthy and there were no physical impediments stopping him from going to the summit. After being so close on several occasions, I now realized how important this climb was to him. Failure was not an option!

“It wasn’t easy leaving my friend behind. Tenzing gave me his outer jacket and another pair of gloves as he didn’t need them he said. He could stay warm in the tent by lying in our sleeping bags until we returned. He looked pale, but insisted.”

“We left the tent just as it was getting light. It was cold, but we were lucky there was hardly a breath of wind. Tenzing’s premonition appeared to be coming true. We started out and although rested, every little movement was a struggle. I am not going to go into details of the immense physical effort required to climb as you have fought those demons and know what it is like. Ang Dawa and I followed broad ledges as they traversed across the yellow band angling towards Norton’s couloir. Just before the couloir we came across two pronounced buttresses which ran down the face, one of which was the continuation of the second step on the ridge above. Here the ledges we followed tapered to just a few inches in width. Below, the slope dropped away very steeply. It was slow, slow going. We crossed the couloir and continued angling up the face of the final pyramid. Fortunately, snow conditions were perfect and only occasionally did we break through to the top of our boots. On and on we went until we reached the crest of the ridge. Ahead of us was the final steep slope leading towards the summit. It wasn’t far, but at the pace we were moving it felt like it was going to take an eternity. The rests became longer and it was all we could do the take two or three steps before stopping again.”

“Ang Dawa stopped a few feet from the summit and turned to me. He waved me forward indicating that he wanted me to step onto the summit first. I walked up to him, placed my arm around his shoulder and together we stepped onto the summit. Spiritually I felt we were one! Although I was exhausted, tears welled up in my eyes. I had been dreaming about this ever since I came up with the idea that if I managed to climb all eight summits of the Virunga Mountains in the Belgian Congo then I would climb Mount Everest. I turned to Ang Dawa and we both threw our arms around each other. I wanted to say something to him, but the words wouldn’t come out. Ang Dawa knelt down on his knees and touched the summit with his forehead to pay respect to the Gods and I followed his example. Although I was experiencing intense joy, my emotions were mixed as I was also sensing sadness. The summit represents the start of the trip drawing to a close. My dream had been fulfilled.”

Out of curiosity I interrupted, “So what was the date when you reached the summit?”

“Yes, I knew you would ask me that. It really is of no consequence! I don’t mean to belittle your ascent or anyone else’s ascent of other mountains, but this was my personal goal. I am truly delighted by your ascent, especially for Tenzing as the mountain is in his blood. He deserved to finally reach the summit.”

“Mountain climbing is a unique obsession because reaching the summit is not the end. The climber can’t let his guard down. The stumbling block is, as you know only too well, he still has to get down. This is what the public don’t usually think about. It is the summit that everyone focuses on. Upon returning home they want proof that you reached the top. Just getting back safely doesn’t mean you summited. If you can’t give the public evidence that you reached the summit, the skeptics and that includes fellow climbers, will forever disbelieve you. I don’t need or want that because I know what I did. Besides, I don’t have anything to offer as proof that I reached the summit as neither of us had a camera.”

I thought about the sardine tin I had found just below the summit and considered that this would be proof. Should I say something about it? Then I realized that possibly Ang Dawa had buried it under the rock and not Denman. Maybe Denman didn’t know anything about it. However, I had to know so I said: “I found a tin under a rock!”

Denman raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem surprised by my comment in fact I got the feeling that he already knew I had found it. Why would I have called him in the first place!

“Ah, the sardine tin! I found that tin while we were walking up the Rongbuk Valley and I put it in my pocket. Clearly it was from one of the early expeditions of the 1920’s, but which one I don’t know. Oddly enough, I started to believe that it had been George Mallory or Andrew Irvine who had eaten the sardines out of this very tin! Later that day when in the tent, I took my knife and scratched the year onto its base and then put it back in my pocket. I had forgotten all about it until I was on the summit. I was going through my pocket for a piece of chocolate when I found the tin. I thought by burying it on the summit there would be a little of me left up there and possibly a little of Mallory and Irvine.”

There was a pregnant pause. My mind raced back to the afternoon when Tenzing and I returned to our tent at the high camp. I was faced with a dilemma about what to do with the tin. The decision I made was to throw the tin away. In my mind I believed this is what Denman would have wanted me to do. Now there was no proof of his ascent. Just my word!

“I threw the tin away!” I said regretfully as I looked over to the window. A warm summer breeze curled over the sill and the scent of the creamy-white flowers of the Cape Mahogany infused the room, a far cry from the cold, lifeless wind that was trying to suck the life from Tenzing and myself as we looked out of the tent door the morning of our climb.

“What happened to the tin doesn’t bother me and please don’t feel bad about what you did. It was an inanimate object that, in hindsight, I should not have left up there to desecrate the summit. Actually, I am thankful for what you did as it has bothered me all these years.”

There was a momentary pause while Denman thought about where he had left off the conversation.

“I don’t know how long Ang Dawa and I spent on the summit, but we had to leave. We still had to get down safely and before it got dark, before the Gods changed their minds. My thoughts flashed back to Tenzing laying in the tent waiting for us. How I dearly wished he could have been with us. We carefully retraced our steps down the steep snow slope aware of the dire consequences of a slip. We arrived at a small rock step that I thought the early expeditions called the third rock step when they saw it from below. Here we had a decision to make, return via our ascent route or continue down the ridge over the third and second rock steps. Ang Dawa suggested we follow the ridge down. From where we stood the route down the ridge looked easier and safer than what we had ascended. I valued his opinion and mountain sense! Without wasting any further time we scrambled down the rock and followed the low angled ridge towards the second step.”

“The crest of the ridge was easy, not like the treacherous traverse we had taken across the face in the morning where the rocks sloped like roof tiles. It wasn’t long before we were at the top of the second step. I looked over the edge and was surprised to see a piece of frayed climbing rope hanging down. It hung half way down the step and the end appeared to be broken. My eyes followed the rope back up to my right where I saw it looped over a horn of rock. Ang Dawa and I moved over to the horn and looked at the rope. It had been there a long time and was bleached by the high altitude effects of the sun. We untied from our rope and hooked it over the horn preparing to rappel the step ourselves. That’s when I saw, frozen onto the rocks beside the horn, a canvas over-glove, a woolen mitt and, strangely, a pencil. I couldn’t pry the glove free, but the pencil disintegrated when I tried to pick it up. The only people they could have belonged to were either George Mallory or Andrew Irvine. So they had managed to climb the step I thought, but did they get any further? Did they get to the top? My mind raced with more questions. What had happened to cause the rope to break? Did the rope break while one of them was rappelling? I couldn’t see a body lying on the rocks down below or one near where I was sitting, however, on either side of me the mountain dropped off steeply! I couldn’t concern myself with their plight right now as Ang Dawa and I had to get down the step and back to the tent.”

“Ang Dawa rappelled down and reached the bottom safely. I then prepared to do the same, but before stepping over the edge I stopped. I bent down and touched the glove imagining I could feel the hand that was once protected from the cold by it, a hand that might have once touched the summit. I looked around for the last time towards the summit of the mountain wondering if Mallory and Irvine’s boots had walked that ridge, if they had reached the summit. What happened to Mallory and Irvine?”

“We eventually reached the security of the tent where Tenzing had a hot drink ready for us. This was the most generous act someone has ever done for me. We were both absolutely exhausted and if Tenzing had not been at the tent I think we would have died. It had been a long day for Tenzing lying waiting in the tent for us, but he was okay. Tenzing was over-joyed at our success. There was no envy or jealousy. His generosity epitomizes the true spirit of mountaineering.”

“The rest of the story down the mountain and back to India is not worth retelling, but I’ll say it gave me time to think about what I was searching for. Just like David who in his day slew Goliath, I had proved to myself that modern David can slay modern Goliath. My childhood heroes – Livingstone, Speke and Burton – showed me that it is not necessary to be one of a team or one of an army. I do not like the new trend of Himalayan climbing. Everest has gone from being a tremendous ideal, to falling into the grips of nationalism. The individual no longer matters. I believe one day when the conquerors have come down from the mountains then we shall be able to go to them again, simply and quietly.”

I sat there silently comprehending what Denman had just told me. I thought about our military style expedition with hundreds of people, and what Denman had achieved as a party of three. Although all of our expedition climbers had aspirations of reaching the summit, not all of them would get the opportunity. The ultimate goal was to put a British climber on the summit for national prestige. Just as Nanga Parbat was considered a German mountain, Mount Everest was considered a British mountain. We had to reach the summit before some other team did, and to the delight of the whole team, Tenzing and I did. However, around the world people were holding their breath waiting for news of, hopefully, our success. When James Morris, the reporter for The Times newspaper, received word of our ascent while waiting at base camp, he sent a coded message back to London so that the announcement of our conquest of Mount Everest could be in the newspaper on the morning of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. A crowning gift for the new monarch! Denman on the other hand had to secretly sneak undetected back through Tibet into India.

When it was time to leave I couldn’t help but admire Earl Denman. His was an exceptional story and he was an extraordinary man. I knew that if his story was made public he would be hounded. I would have to respect his wishes to keep it to myself. As we reached the front door, Denman picked up a small parcel off a sideboard table and handed it to me. The content was wrapped in a Tibetan silk scarf. He said that he has kept this for seven years since his climb on Everest and that it was time for him to pass it on. The last thing he said to me was I should find this rather interesting, and then he said good bye. I walked out feeling bewildered by his unexpected remark and wondered what this could be that I was holding!

Later in the day my curiosity got the better of me. I picked up the package, unfolded the silk scarf and found an old leather shoulder satchel, like that of a schoolboy’s. It had obviously been outside for a long time. It was worn and bleached by the elements. Etched into the leather, on the front, were the initials ACI with a date – 1924. What the hell was I holding? I nervously opened the flap and reached in. I pulled out a book. More precisely a note book! I opened the pages and there was Andrew Comyn Irvine’s personal diary. My heart was hammering harder than it was those last few feet to the summit of Mount Everest. I flicked through the pages of writing and sketches. I knew exactly where I am going. I turned to the last entry - it was written, and dated, at 6:30 on the evening of June 8. I sensed a numbing cold on my fingertips as I held the book and in my mind I could see Irvine’s frozen hand holding the pencil, struggling to scrawl his last feelings. In a state of anxious anticipation I read his closing, almost illegible, words in hallowed silence. 

Lindsay Elms:2015 

 

Bill Murray: 'Dance upon the mountains like a flame'

“… in the worst days of the war there shone most often before my eyes the clear vision of that evening on Nevis, when the snow plateau sparkled red at sunset, and of Glencoe, when the frozen towers of Bidian burned in the moon. In the last resort, it is the beauty of the mountain world in the inmost recesses that holds us spellbound, slaves until life ends.”

The inmost recesses, those of the soul … In the whole corpus of Scottish mountain literature only one mountaineer could have expressed these sentiments so delicately.

The quotation comes from Mountaineering in Scotland, and I was sitting at the fireside in the home of the man who wrote them in enemy prison camps, W. H. Murray, known to everybody as Bill. I was in Bournemouth, working as a surveyor, when the book came out in 1947, and I knew I was reading a classic as adventure followed adventure with a dimension of action and powerful description that made you feel that you were one of his companions on the rope, so clearly was each character brought to life. Little did I know then that one day I would be off to the Himalaya with three of the men mentioned in the book, one of them Bill Murray himself.

 

Down the years we have retained contact, but this was the first time I had visited him at his home perched on the rocky shore of Loch Goil. Since that first book Bill has written 19 more and won many honours. I suggested to him that it was time he wrote his autobiography since he has so much to say that nobody has heard yet, but the humorous glint in his blue eyes showed me he didn’t take me seriously. “Tell me the background to your present life, for I’ve never really known it despite the times we’ve had together.”

For such a tall man, Bill has a small and narrow head, and the thoughtful expression has about the eyes the penetrating gaze of the hawk. He weighs his words carefully, and some people feel uncomfortable at the long pause between question and answer as he searches his mind for the precise choice. In this case the pause was broken by his wife Anne bringing in the morning coffee.

 

Auburn-haired, tall and active, Anne is also a climber and she writes sensitive poetry. We chatted as a trio about the oddities of the house which used to be a stable, where you go downstairs to the dining- room which used to hold a horse. But Bill’s mind had been working away in the background as we talked, and when we were alone and settled down in armchairs he fired away with fluency. 

 

“Until I was 19, mountains never entered ray consciousness. Not until I overheard two men talking about a mountain called An Teallach. They were describing a thin, narrow ridge above the clouds with shafts of sunlight striking distant seas and islands. To me it was a positive revelation— a vision of a strange new world, here in Scotland, and not abroad.

“So one April day I went to the Cobbler. I wore my ordinary clothes, shoes, collar and tie. I went to the Cobbler because it was the only mountain I knew by name. There was hard, frozen snow in the corrie, and I kicked steps in it naturally since without an ice-axe it was the only way up. I was frightened by the consequences of a slip, but I got to the top of the centre peak. The rocks of the south peak were bare of snow, so I scrambled up. From the tops I saw a seascape of snowy mountains for the first time. The desire to be a mountaineer was born at that instant, but the idea that any one person could climb them all didn’t seem possible.

“I joined the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. In these days of the mid-thirties there were innumerable small hostels, and for a year I climbed by myself, in the Trossachs, the Crianlarich hills, the Cairngorms and on Liathach in Glen Torridon. It was from people in the hostels that I first heard about mountain clubs, and as I wanted to be a rock-climber I joined the Junior Mountaineering Club of Scotland in 1935.” Bill was a trainee banker at this time, which was interesting enough to him, but he spent a lot of time writing short stories, mainly about people in ordinary human situations.

 

“Even at school I wanted to be a writer, but such a career seemed impossible for a boy, because you need experience of life to be a writer.” He was to gain it in the next four years with the men who took him to the Crowberry Ridge and shocked him with its exposure, but exhilarated his mind with the totality of the experience.

“I would say I was a naturally good mover on rock and soon came to enjoy the exposure, but what really drew me to winter climbing on the great routes was the nervous tension and suspense which kept building up until you reached the top. Then the relaxation and exhilaration.”

Listen to this, after climbing the Crowberry Gully in January 1941 before going off to join the Middle East forces in Egypt. It was Bill’s 80th ascent of the Buachaille Etive Mor, and at 7.15 he and his companion R. G. Donaldson reached the summit after being stretched to the limit of their resources on ice-covered rock.

” . . . The ring of low crags under the summit, the ground beneath our feet, and all the rocks around were buried in ice crystals. Although night had fallen, yet up there so close to the sky there was not true darkness. A mysterious twilight, like that of an old chapel at vespers, pervaded these highest slopes of Buachaille.We stood at the everlasting gates, and as so often happens at the close of a great climb, a profound silence came upon my mind, and paradoxically, the silence was song and the diversity of things vanished. The mountains and the world and I were one. But that was not all : a strange and powerful feeling that something unknown was almost within my grasp, was trembling into vision, stayed with me until we reached the cairn, where it passed away.We went down to Glen Etive for the last time, and I fear we went sadly. The moon shone fitfullv through ragged brown clouds.”

Bill Mackenzie, Archie MacAlpine & Bill Murray after 2nd ascent Rubicon Wall, 1937 (Photo: Douglas Scott)

Bill has no doubt at all in his mind that these pre-war years on the Scottish hills were his best, and that nothing that has come to him since in the Alps or on Everest has brought the ecstasy of climbing hard routes with well-tried companions when he was physically fittest and enthusiasm was highest.

For him the men and the mountains came together at the right time. This is what he wrote in reflection as a prisoner of war.

“In three years of squalor in overcrowded prison camps, where misery gnawed at men’s fortitude, these stored memories heartened me like ‘ a light for memory to turn to when it wants a beam on its face - and youth, somewhat crushed in warfare, revived hope for the future from inexhaustible mountain springs. That through mountains I have been given not only vivid memories but lasting joys and friendships more priceless than accumulations of gold, is no idle theory invented in credulous days of comfort and security, but a sure knowledge won in adversity. I was lucky to begin climbing when I did, in the same year as the new Glencoe road was opened, when you could buy second-hand cars for a song and pack in climbs with a frequency never before possible at week-ends.”

I asked him what had brought him from Glasgow to such an out-of- the-way spot as Lochgoilhead, remembering the icy and twisting single-track I had descended from the summit of the Rest-and-be-Thankful by Glen Mor.

"After being demobbed, and having given up the bank to try to earn a living as a writer, I was determined to find an environment among growing and living things. I came to see this house on an April day when the cherry blossom was out and the sea loch Mediterranean blue. The view of the rocky hills through the window was enchanting. The rates were only £8 a year—they are £100 now. I bought it and moved here with my mother. I soon found, however, I had less time for writing in the country than in a Glasgow flat, for I now had 2 and a half acres of land and a house 100 years old that needed a lot of things done to it.”
 

Lochgoilhead was a place to work, nor was its isolation irksome, for he was more often away than in it during the exploration years in Garhwal, in North-west Nepal, and on the Everest reconnaissance with Shipton, finding the route up the Western Cwm by which the mountain was successfully climbed in 1953. Since 1969 he has led four trekking trips to Nepal, taking people to 18,000 feet, so he can hardly be said to be a stay-at-home even now.

He believes that it is important for a writer to get about. While a working writer certainly has the advantage over others of being relatively unaware of high rainfall and restricted, views, he nevertheless requires the stimulus of change if he is to keep writing.What of writing as a way of life after 20 books since 1947?
 

“I’d never advise anyone to take it up as a career. You can earn a lot more with very much less mental stress if you work for an employer. Personally, I never worried until inflation started, but full-time writing is no longer economically viable by itself. You have to keep your mind in a money-earning groove, so one cannot write what one likes. To me the most enjoyable form of writing is fiction, using one’s creative imagination, but unless you hit the jackpot the return from it in Britain doesn’t justify it. You must have American sales. Of my six thrillers, two were not worth writing from the financial aspect.

“The chief pleasure for me of being a writer is the sharing of experience with a wider public, of events from which I have derived great enjoyment. A non-fiction book takes me two years to write, and I find the hardest aspect the planning of it. Once you have got this out of the way it’s the library work that takes the time. The county library service is very good, but you have to spend days in Glasgow and Edinburgh filling loose-leaf notebooks with notes.

“For books like The Islands of Western Scotland, The Companion Guide to the West Highlands of Scotland, The Hebrides, and my most recent one, The Scottish Highlands I get advice from experts on what to read about their subject, be it geology, archaeology or whatever. Then when I have written the stuff I send it to them for vetting.

“Looking back, I have no regrets. I think I have had a good life doing what I have done since I have no talent for any other occupation. Medicine is something I might have gone in for …”

He left that statement unfinished, and I remembered how in the Himalaya he had devoted a lot of time to doctoring the sick who came to our camps. His two best-selling books to date are The Story of Everest, published in the year of the first ascent—a tale of the mountain from its first sighting to its eventual conquest. It sold 30,000 copies, and went into eight foreign translations. His Companion Guide is running second now at over 20,000 and still selling.

 

On the outstanding beauty of the Highland scene…

One of the more abstract jobs he undertook was to make a survey of the North for the National Trust for Scotland, resulting in a book called Highland Landscape, identifying the regions of supreme landscape value. It meant walking over the ground and assessing it against his personal experience of the territories over a period of 30 years.

In his conclusion he writes :

“The outstanding beauty of the Highland scene, which is one of the nation’s great natural assets, has been haphazardly expended and no account kept. The wasting away of this asset is bound to continue and to accelerate unless discrimination and control arc brought to bear by some body created for the purpose and granted powers by the Government, so that checks and safeguards may be instituted. If action to that good end be not taken now, the Scottish people will lose by neglect what remains of their natural heritage.”

Well, a body was formed, the Countryside Commission, and Bill Murray has been a member of it for 10 years. Alas, however, it is not an organisation of real power. Its work is mainly inspirational, and in the end it is the local authorities which call the tune. But Bill has made his voice heard, which is the reason why he is Chairman of the Scottish Countryside Activities Council, representing 30 organisations and 400,000 countryside users.

Until recently, he was Chairman of the Mountaineering Council for Scotland, which is the voice of all mountaineers to Government, and to all others having responsibility for mountain land. It works in partnership with the British Mountaineering Council of which Bill was vice-president. In addition to that he was President of the SMC from 1962-64.

“I had to give up some of these posts because I wasn’t getting enough time for writing or climbing. They’ve been very good for me. I’ve learned a lot and know the value of the work that has to be done if right decisions affecting the Scottish countryside are to be made. There are whole areas of Argyll where no conservation principles are being put into effect, and that includes Lochgoilhead.”

Buchaille Etive Mor remains his most loved mountain. He also has, in his garden, a steep face of rock which even by the easiest way gives a severe problem that a few good climbers have failed to solve. Bill can still do it, “Because I know the holds,” he confesses. Nowadays he seeks out more moderate climbs when he goes to the Buachaille, and winter ascents are by the easier gullies cutting steps in the old way. Not for him the modern style. “If I were starting again I would be all for the special tools and techniques which enable you to climb steep ice as if you were on rock.

 

“To do it you need a lot of practice. But I have my reservations. Hamish Maclnnes says it has taken a lot of fun out of winter climbing. My own view is that earlier climbers probably got a bigger kick with nothing more than nailed boots and axes than the modern generation get with advanced aids. And when you think of it, the pioneers who did the classic winter climbs on Nevis, Glencoe and other places published astonishingly little detail about the routes. They minimised the difficulties which must have been considerable.”

On mountains the need for constant vigilance on steep places is the hardest lesson to remember, and the one which even the best climbers forget at the cost of their lives. The danger is part of the fun. It breeds self-reliance, though Bill is sure the mountains cannot be used for character-building, for something goes astray the moment you try to organise.

Bill Murray is extremely glad that he started off alone, finding his own way. ” I am sure I would have lost half my enthusiasm if I had been led by a qualified instructor.” He joined a club when he was ready for it, and there met the team-mates who formed the strongest climbing partnership of the ’30’s. He regards the clubs as being “Mountaineering’s essential backbone—a framework on which tradition and development naturally hang and grow.”

Tom Weir: 1977. First published as 'Murray's Way' in The Scots Magazine.

 

The Making of 'The Bat and the Wicked'

Stills from the Bat and the Wicked: Climbers Brian Hall and Rab Carrington

Predictably the first drop of rain splattered the windscreen as we left the M6 and crossed the Scottish border. Ahead, the lowering clouds promised more rain. Not for the first time I questioned the wisdom of going ahead with a project that could prove to be an embarrassing waste of money. The Yorkshire Arts Association had given us a substantial grant to make a film reconstructing the first ascent of The Bat on Ben Nevis, a climb immortalised in Robin Smith's classic article The Bat and the Wicked - recently reprinted in Games Climbers Play. The five of us involved, Rab Carrington, Brian Hall, Paul Nunn, Tony Riley and myself, had only one week together in the whole of the summer in which to shoot the film, and that was the first week in August, notoriously one of the wettest times of the year.

I had first approached Rab at Easter and asked him if he would be interested in acting/climbing the part of Robin Smith. His enthusiasm for the project was tempered by two things: having to fall off in front of a camera, and the prospect of shaving his beard and having his hair cut in 1959 style, when the film was to be set. Rab voiced his misgivings the day before he went soloing at Froggatt. Visiting him in the Hallamshire Hospital the following evening as he nursed a broken wrist and knee, I couldn't help feeling that he had taken the audition a little too seriously.

But Rab is incredibly determined and by rigorous training he managed to get himself fit in time for Scotland. His second objection was conclusively overruled by Sue, whose desire to see her husband immortalised on the silver screen resulted in such a drastic change in his appearance that Keith Myhill talked to him for ten minutes in the Moon without recognising him! Brian Hall, who was to play the role of Dougal Heston, was shamed into sub-mission in Fort William where an equally ruthless transformation took place. Before we left for the Ben we visited Hamish MacInnes in Glencoe, ostensibly to ask the Old Fox for advice, but in reality to borrow as much rope as we could lay our hands on, for it was obvious that the project was an almost expedition-sized target and a lot of gear would be needed. He also supplied us with an antique pair of PAs that he had loaned Robin Smith for the original ascent. This seemed a good omen and driving back to Fort William it actually stopped raining.

Surveying the mountain of film and climbing gear to be carried up the Alit a'Mhuilinn, Rab observed caustically that it was more than the total taken to climb Jannu the previous year. The addition of camping gear made it even worse for we had been refused permission to use the CIC but on the grounds that film-making caused "gross inconvenience to the hut users". This was a strange point of view considering that we were trying to make a film about two of the most distinguished members of the SMC and that the hut was locked and empty on four out of the five nights we spent on the Ben. Presumably the "gross inconvenience" would have been to ourselves, but it was hard to accept that as we foundered up through the bogs with huge rucksacks twice in the same day. (For all those like me who find the walk to the hut gruelling in winter, I can offer the consolation that it is even worse in summer.

Tuesday morning saw us sorting out the shambles of film and climbing gear and carting it up to the foot of Carn Dearg Buttress to start work. Past experience had shown Tony and me that the early stages of a film are inevitably disjointed and contrived, but amazingly everything flowed from the start. With no previous filming experience Brian and Rab needed surprisingly little guidance.

 The major problem was the climb itself, still soaked from days of rain and drying much slower than our time would allow. Even the first straightforward pitch of Centurion needed some furtive "modern" protection inserted by Paul, whose job it was to supervise the climbing scenes and make sure that nobody killed themselves in a misplaced devotion to the cause of Art. Paul's efforts over the week in rigging stances removed the need to worry about anything except getting the shots right, and he put in a huge amount of unseen work in ensuring that everything ran smoothly. We came down in the evening delighted to have filmed the route as far as the bottom of the Hoodie Groove, a blank corner perched over the bottomless slabs and overhangs between Centurion and Sassenach. Rab and Brian had abseiled down a single rope over the huge roof of Sassenach.

We could therefore jumar up it next day without having to repeat the long traversing pitches across from Centurion. This proved to be more awkward than we thought, for after only one ascent Paul found the rope fraying badly on the lip of an overhang. He fixed a three hundred foot top rope to protect subsequent ascents, but as the fixed rope hung almost completely free it was perpetually spinning itself around the top rope, causing wild de-spinning tactics before a few feet of height could be gained. As one gained height the close-up view of Sassenach one second, and the distant view out over the Cam Mor Dearg Arete the next, was enough, as Tony said, to persuade those who see jumaring as a soft option to stick to leading their E5s! There was no room for both Tony and me at the bottom of the Hoodie Groove, so Tony filmed from the ground while I squatted in a cocoon of rope filming Brian as he attempted to lead the groove in its original form — by lassoing a sling on a tiny spike on the left wall, which is probably harder than doing it free. I had visions of using vast quantities of film as he failed to loop the sling but luckily he managed it after only three or four attempts.

By the time he and Rab had climbed the groove we had taken all day to film a mere forty feet of climbing. Our euphoria of the previous day was further diminished by the appearance of the great corner above; the whole film depended on climbing the thing. It was still streaked with water and covered in brown fungus of indeterminate origin. That evening we had a rethink of tactics and decided that Brian and Rab should go up on their own and "ascend" the corner by fair means or foul, unencumbered by us filming. Tony and I would stay at the bottom and get whatever long shots were possible, while Paul would go down to Fort William to buy more food in case we needed to stay on another day or two, and a bottle or two of something which we needed anyway. The weather throughout our stay was behaving in a most peculiar manner.

It never actually rained on Cam Dearg but apparently was doing so almost everywhere else in sight. Every evening it would clear as if by magic to produce quite nauseatingly beautiful sunsets. Rab found the amount of still and movie film exposed quite hilarious and decided it was all a plot by Kodak to boost their profits. Thursday passed according to our new plan and Friday saw us assembled at the foot of the Buttress in varying degrees of tension. Brian and Rab had forced their way up the corner the previous day and knew what was in store for them. Paul went up the ropes first to the top of the corner to supervise the action and also take a camera to film downwards. It was Tony's turn to go up, while I would film from the ground using the big Arriflex camera. Brian and Rab were wearing full Troll body harnesses under their ancient and tatty anoraks and sweaters. With the old nylon ropes tied into them and then retied around their waists they looked suitably authentic, while at the same time minimising their chances of injury from what they were about to do.

 Unfortunately helmets were not used much in 1959, but we reckoned that the falls down the corner would be in space and head injuries were unlikely — we hoped. Before Tony set off he whispered_to me, "Would you throw yourself off up there —just to be in a film?" "No," I replied, trying not to sound long-winded. "Neither would I," he muttered as he launched off up the spinning ropes. Two hours later we were all set up. High above, Brian was at the point sixty feet up the corner where Haston had taken his famous fall: " a black and bat like shape came hurtling over the roof with legs splayed like webbed wings and hands hooked like a vampire "

"Everyone ready? Okay Brian, action!" For once the word meant what it said and after a moment's frantic scrabbling Brian parted company with the rock and hurtled down the corner — further than any of us had anticipated as he ended up only feet above Tony's lens. "Everything okay. God, that was impressive!" I felt sorry for Rab. Ever since his unplanned rehearsal at Froggatt I sensed he wasn't relishing the next few moments and Brian's fall couldn't have been too reassuring. Now he would have to go up and do it himself — twice! Another longer wait while belays and camera positions were sorted out before Rab, perched above the roof halfway up the corner, launched off into fresh air. 

Jimmy Marshall's classic shot of Robin Smith

His falls were shorter but seemed just as frightening, perhaps because they were over before the mind had time to register what was happening. I felt a huge weight off my mind; nobody hurt and all three falls on film. The rest was an anticlimax until Tony pulled off a stroke of genius by dropping a camera, suitably padded with foam rubber and polystyrene (unlike the climbers), down the corner to give a climber's eye view of the fall. The rest of the film was made in a haze of elation and shattered reaction to five days of non-stop and demanding work. On Saturday we finished, splashed down through the bogs for the last time and on Sunday awoke with hangovers to torrential rain sweeping the whole of Scotland. The gamble had paid off, but only just. 

Jim Curran: First Published in crags 24/April/May 1980.