A GRAND OLD CLUB

I estimated the man sitting next to me, who was shortish but quite powerfully built, to be in his 60s. It was difficult to tell for he had a young round face and hair that looked as though it had been dyed white with peroxide and had not turned grey with the passage of time. He wore a smart suit and shirt to match but what really did it for me was the Elvis Presley tie!

Over twenty years ago Ken Crocket, the then New Routes Editor of The Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, invited me to join the Scottish Mountaineering Club. I'm not really a club person but I was so flattered that I had to accept his offer, assuming of course that I had climbed the pre-requisite number of Munros!

Slightly naively perhaps I had romantic notions of sharing the CIC Hut with some of the old timers but sadly that was never to be. On reflection and with the knowledge of hindsight, the ball was in my court and it was up to me to bring the generations together. But as a young up and coming, these matters are so often clouded by one's ego.

Instead I broke with tradition and instigated a new grading system. (Prior to 1980 VS was the top grade in the SMT climbers series guide books). I then added fuel to the fire by raising a motion to accept women into the club. As a consequence I was instantly billed as a young "shit stirrer" to quote one well-known member.

I'll never forget that AGM in Grantown on Spey. The motion was raised at the end of the meeting under "Any Other Business" and there was a deep anonymous grumble, not unlike an excited crowd at the Houses of Parliament. "P-p-p-preposterous!" one senior member remarked and then promptly fell from his seat, landing awkwardly on the floor. My God, I've caused a coronary were my first thoughts!

I had heard of stories about the establishment but I couldn't believe what I was witnessing before my very eyes. The motion was dealt with in a most unfair manner by holding an immediate vote and surprisingly to me the majority were against. So that was the end of that. It would be almost another ten years before women were finally accepted, not to mention a new grading system!

I was later to learn that the man who had fallen from his chair was Alex Small, a gifted mountaineer with numerous first ascents to his credit. One of his most impressive achievements was an uncredited first winter ascent of Crowberry Ridge Direct in 1938. Although there was some dispute surrounding conditions on the ascent (and others of a similar ilk) I think this quote in a letter to Rab Anderson in 1981 says it all.

"Your call proved to be quite a pleasant interlude as I had to look up my diaries and wallow in a dose of nostalgia. I found that the Crowberry winter climb was done on 3 April 1938. It was a rough day of hail squalls and sun bursts and the snow and ice was pretty thick above 2000ft, enough to make the way from the Waterslide up the early bit of Curved Ridge messy and toilsome.

"I swept away snow from the holds at Abraham's left traverse but once started I found I couldn't manage to clear the further ones so I went back, took off my boots and tried it in stocking soles. The famous finger tip hold at the move up was iced over and I thought I was beaten but my soles stuck so well I did a press up and sweeping and clinging I finished the pitch.

"The next pitch was hard and we now could see that the slabby section up to the foot of the Tower was mostly on ice and frost with runnels of snow. As we had only one axe - and borrowed at that - we did a slanting line across and down on to Hyphen Rib - which we knew well as we had done the first ascent.

"Straightforward until we came to the overhanging slit which leads up to the crest of Crowberry Ridge. This again beat us until I jammed the axe in a crack and once more in stocking soles used the axe head as a hand hold then foot hold and finding some unsuspected holds for my left hand, made the crest. Hauling the sack, my boots and my second, who came off twice, was bloody tiring and trying to force my feet into frozen boots rather piled on the agony.

"Fortunately that was the end of the difficulties and we went over the Tower, nearly dropping the axe down Crowberry Gully and got down to the road in another blinding hail storm.

"When Hamish and Johnnie sent in a note of their climb to the SMC Journal, I told J.H.B. Bell the Editor about my climb in '38, much earlier than their claim but wee Jim was very canny and said "I'm not going to adjudicate on what are winter conditions." So there you are. Hope your article is a winner. I've enjoyed recalling our youthful escapades&£8230; see that you keep a diary. All best wishes, yours aye, Alex Small."

Most of my summer seasons were spent guiding in the Alps and while I was away my annual sub failed to find its way into the coffers of the club's treasury despite strenuous efforts by Bill Wallace (the club secretary) to forewarn me of the constitution of the club rules. And so by the early 80's I was no longer a member, resigned it was thought by many on political grounds. Certainly there were some politics ongoing regards the use of huts at that time but I had nothing to do with it.

More recently I was sitting in the Nevis Bank in Fort William when Bob Richardson the hut custodian walked in. We talked and then he asked if I would be interested in rejoining. I explained that politics were never an issue and basically being lazy at heart, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of all the necessary paper work to become member again. Having cleared the air with Bob and Des Reubens and having righted all the wrongs and misunderstandings, I was back in the SMC.

So there I was, twenty years older, a little wiser and only marginally more mature, still trying to make a living from climbing, selling my calendars in the foyer of the Alex Hotel on the night of the club dinner 2000. I was moved by the support and spirit of members in the club - not that a special discounted price had anything to do with it!

Sadly I learned of a splinter group, who for various reasons were holding their own dinner further east. Apparently, one reason being that they preferred to sit next to their friends and family rather than members they didn't know. For me this was all part of the fun and an opportunity to meet some of the characters and older members of which there are many to be found in the three hundred strong membership.

We were piped into the dining room. It sounds very formal but it isn't really and I sat at a table with eight others, only one of whom I already knew. As I looked around many of the members appeared to be well up in years, in their sixties, seventies and nineties age group but I was struck by their youthful appearance. There were all walks of life from lawyers, scientist and surgeons to writers and politicians, some of whom were very successful.

But the one common interest that brought all of us together on this evening was our mad passion to climb rock, ice and mountains. The dining room was full of exceptional talent and a strange mix of conflicting generations. I imagined climbers such as myself, with a working class and relatively uneducated background, would be scoffed at by such a society at the turn of the century.

The atmosphere was friendly though and I sensed that everyone was trying, despite the generation gaps, to understand each other and get along. As I thought more about the past, I experienced a degree of envy. Envy at the quietude and solitude that so many of the elder members must have enjoyed in comparison to today&£8217;s busy hills and crags.

Malcolm Slesser, a well-established member of the SMC in his mid 70's, was the only person I vaguely knew at our table. I remembered him as a grumpy political type who made me feel misunderstood (although I'm sure this was through my own doing). But tonight he was talkative and friendly and spoke excitedly about the prospect of possibly climbing the Mer de Glace Face of the Grepon in Chamonix, of his chances and how best to prepare himself for such a rock climb - or was the demon drink doing all his talking?

At the age of 42 I was the youngster of the table and inevitably the topic of conversation shifted towards modern trends in climbing but I steered away from this subject to talk about winter climbing and then somehow or another we touched on the subject of chopping steps. On that note I had struck a chord for all eyes at the table sprung to life.

Malcolm enthusiastically spoke about a little epic he experienced on Green Gully last year when he ran out of steam and lowered off with the rope flicked over the head of his ice axe! Robert Shaw, the man with the Elvis Presley tie sitting next to me, had already pushed back his chair and was now in mid flight, excitedly demonstrating a detailed re-enactment of the crux of Point Five Gully. A tap here, a swoop and a chop there. Mind you, he expressed, the crampons were really bendy. But this wasn't a demo from any old ascent of Point Five, this was from the first ascent with Clough and Pipes back in 1959.

Bob Shaw (no relation), who was sitting on the other side next to me, was a contemporary of Fulton and Nicholson who were a great inspiration to Bob and many others like him in the 60's. They talked about Smith and Haston. "Robin was a real nutter but what a wonderful man," said Robert. Opinions on Haston were somewhat divided, although Malcolm, who was also on Smith's ill fated trip to the Pamirs in 1963, said that he could put up with Smith's constant larking around but only if he would stop pissing all over my tent!

One by one the tall tales rolled into the evening. We sang the club song "oh my old hob nailers" backed by the musical talent of Curly Ross and his guitar. Bryan Fleming ended his three year presidency by providing us with a series of entertaining and witty speeches before handing over a well seasoned Ashen Brenner to the new president, Ken Crocket, who delivered an excellent off the cuff speech himself although he did initially try to squirm out of it!

Guest and master of after dinner speeches Ian MacNaught Davies continued the humorous theme which brought us to midnight. We retired to the bar where I met Jamie Andrew and his friend John. Immediately their presence reminded me of an after dinner speech I presented to the Edinburgh University Mountaineering Club at the Ardgour Hotel. To this day I wondered how well, or badly, it went down but they both assured me that they still talked about it with great passion, especially when John and half the club adopted a rather contagious "Cosmic Dave" ascent (see previous column) in the months to follow.

Jimmy Marshall delivered the previous years' speech so I felt it was a hard act to follow. But when I heard that Jimmy, like myself, was locked out of his hotel room and spent the night in the student's barn, as I did, at least I'd followed in the footsteps of tradition! It was only a year or so since Jamie's ordeal on Les Droites in the Mont Blanc Massif but he was in remarkable shape. Clutching his pint with neatly rounded stumps and smoking at the same time. "You should see him roll a roll-up," said John, "incredibly - mind you, he uses more tobacco than paper!"

It was a great night and although there are some younger members, a few more youngsters wouldn't go amiss.

Before we parted company, Robert and that bizarre Elvis Presley tie, suggested that we should team up together for a special ascent of Point Five Gully. "We could make loads of money," he quipped excitedly.

We'll see!

Cubby

14/2/2001