GEAR SPECIAL
Frustrated by the lack of decent kit available, mountaineers like Rab Carrington and Peter Hutchinson began designing, making and selling it themselves. Quite reasonably, they assumed this would lead to careers that revolved around the outdoors; quite by accident, they became big businessmen with teams of staff and less time to spend in the mountains than ever. “We used to pay a lot for European pegs and krabs,” said
Peter Hutchinson, “or made them ourselves.” What began as a way to save money developed into a business venture: in 1961, Peter founded Mountain Equipment. “When I started up, none of the UK gear specialists were around except Karrimor. I remember the Berghaus lads starting later.” Hutchinson began making outdoor equipment to order, from the farm shack he lived in. He recalls Yvon Chouinard, founder of Black Diamond Equipment, fl ying over from America to check out the competition: “When he saw this ramshackle outhouse with two dirty guys heating up pegs in the fi replace, I think he realised he didn’t have much to worry about.” Soon afterwards, Hutchinson was visited by outdoor retailer Bob Brigham (of the family business now known as Ellis Brigham), got his fi rst order for a range of sleeping bags, and moved into new premises in Glossop. It was an era of intense innovation, competition and collaboration. Climbers like Don Whillans and Dougie Haston helped design the kit they needed for the new age. Whillans developed the Whillans Box tent (made by Karrimor), the fi rst one-piece down suit (made by Peter Hutchinson) and the fi rst sit harness (made by Troll). In 1977, Mark Vallance got the bank to give him a second mortgage, and worked with Ray Jardine to produce the fi rst Friends: Wild Country was born. Brits were behind innovations in walking gear, too. Berghaus and Karrimor’s
V Hector Vieytes who taught Rab Carrington all he knew in Buenos Aires, where Rab worked for him. Photo: Rab Carrington.
R The Alpkit team today. Photo: Alpkit.
W He’s seen it all. Peter Hutchinson: founder of Mountain Equipment. Photo: PHD.
rivalry pushed rucksack design to increasingly high standards, and Berghaus famously worked with Gore-Tex to create better waterproof breathable fabrics. By the 1980s, a variety of UK outdoor-gear companies had cropped up. Fast forward to 1990 and a red-bricked building, Rab Down Equipment, stands a mile outside Sheffi eld city centre. It’s surrounded by small, derelict factories; once part of Sheffi eld’s thriving steel and cutlery industries, now long closed. Rab on the other hand, was on the up. His business, which he’d started from home in 1981, now employed around 20 people: sewing machinists, cutters, down fi llers and quality controllers. This would more than double before the end. I spoke to Mark Wilson, a former cutter, who worked there for 25 years. “Rab was very hands-on and always asking our opinions, products evolved,” he told me. Now, however, Rab’s factory is boarded up, like Sheffi eld’s steelworks before it. Rab still down-fi ll their sleeping bags in- house (saving bulky shipping, giving hands-on quality control and ensuring that every bag is freshly fi lled close to the time of purchase) but nearly all their gear is made overseas. And they’re not alone: there’s a depressingly similar story behind most of our home-grown gear companies. They survived the Thatcher years but, then, one after the other, most shut down in the 1990s. You can trace everything back to the ‘MADE IN CHINA’ labels on our stuff. In the 1970s, leader Deng Xiaoping’s reforms opened China’s economy for business, and set the country on the heady road to capitalism. Investors began buying into Britain’s gear companies and offshoring manufacture to China. Staff costs plummeted, and suddenly there was no factory, unions, health-and-safety, machinery or raw materials to worry about. You can see the appeal.
MADE IN THE UK A selection of brands that are still Made in Britain: Alpkit:
Alpine Aiguille: outdoor equipment, Lake District.
www.aiguillealpine.co.uk
bouldering mats, chalk bags and bike-frame bags,
Derbyshire.
www.alpkit.com 50 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
Alt-berg: walking boots, Sheffi eld.
www.altberg.co.uk
Blox Climbing:
climbing clothing, chalk bags and mats, Barnsley.
www.climblox.com
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