THAT’S ME
Bill Gordon B
64, NATIONAL PARK RANGER, STANAGE
You might recognise Bill Gordon. Bill is the face of Stanage – he’s the National Park ranger for the North Lees Estate and the person who runs the campsite for this, the most beloved of our crags.
ill studied fine art, including three years as an MA in the London’s Royal College of Art. This led to a teaching post in Sheffield, after which he was given a position as an assistant dry-stone waller for the National Park in 1980. In 1983 he took over as the tenant of North Lees, where he’s remained ever since. He retires later this year.
I’m sixty four and I still clean toilets. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t still have to do that, but it’s part of people’s experience of being here.
I studied art at the Royal College of Art from 1976 to 1979. It was the Punk era and we lodged just off the Kings Road so we got to see what was going on. It was anarchy. It was political. It was a revolution and it was pushing at the boundaries all the time, and I loved it.
It’s been a privilege to look after such an iconic piece of landscape as Stanage. I think I’ve done alright for it.
Age makes you rethink lots of things that you once took for granted. There’s more that I don’t know now than I thought I knew when I was 45.
I don’t have a big ego. I prefer to work quietly in the background and get things done.
I like the climbing fraternity because it has an element of anarchy. That’s anarchy as a philosophical concept. Anarchy isn’t getting drunk and playing loud music; anarchy is self respect and respect for others. The campsite is an example of that, and it levels out people who can cope with anarchy.
For me, it’s all about sharing. That’s what I have tried to do: share the crag, share the campsite. I’m here to welcome you whoever you are or whatever you look like.
I love Twitter. I love having the opportunity to be able to share what I observe, the detail, the sounds.
I walk this landscape every day. I follow the same tracks and I know virtually every footprint. And in looking for the same thing every day I keep seeing new things. It’s always different – the birdsong, a fern, the colour in a rock. I see the small detail of the land and I can see everything in it.
I got very interested in Daoism, and particular a thing called Quietism. How to get into the birdcage without the bird singing. How to get into a position where your presence doesn’t cause alarm. How to walk this landscape without having any negative impact on it.
The ring ouzel became a metaphor for wilderness. The landscape was becoming urbanised – pay-and-display meters, parking restrictions, bus stops – then along came this bird whose habitat was wilderness. If the ring ouzel could survive at Stanage then it must be wilderness. So the ring ouzel became a hugely important issue; it had to prosper.
Up until three or four thousand years ago, Stanage would have been forested. Oak, Hazels, Hollies, Adlers. Robin Hood’s Cave wouldn’t have stood out. A squirrel could go from coast to coast and not touch the ground. There would have been communities living up there. There are Neolithic barrow caves under Crow Chin. There were periods of conflict in the land and people would have come to places like this to get away from it all.
If we are serious about our uplands then there needs to be change. We have cut down all the trees; we have heather fires; we shoot the grouse. There should be a reversal. We need to get the scrub back again.
The National Park Authority has done a great job under tremendous pressure, but sometimes I feel it loses its way a bit. This is why partnerships are so important. Partners like the BMC, who should have an enormous input into the National Park and its decisions.
The highpoint of visitors to Stanage was the mid-1990s. On Valentine’s Day 1997, there were 600 cars parked around Stanage. These days there are about half the number of climbers along Stanage as there was then.
Climbers own Stanage, in an emotional sense. That informs how I go about my role.
Follow Bill on Twitter @NorthleesBill Words and photo: Niall Grimes.
24 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
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