PERSPECTIVE
Immeasurable moments were spent picnicking at
the bottom of crags, scrambling over the millstones, stalking the sheep, trying not to get ticks in our ankles and desperately trying not to listen to the conversations amongst our mothers. “Worrying about him ... K2... Greenland expedition ... Tom Patey has died.” We spent hours in pub carparks with bottles of Coke, packets of crisps and a sleeping bag to rest on if we eventually flaked out, whilst our fathers drank in the Vaynol Arms, the Rhiconich, the Grouse and the Fox, only to wake as the ubiquitous Bedford van ground to a halt at home or at a remote camping site on the north-west coast of Scotland. They climbed hard and drove hard. I remember so many of these men – all uncles to me – and all with a special story to tell. My own father was a prolific storyteller and I soaked up all his anecdotes like a sponge. Now aged 51, I can retell every one. But it is with the moon in my head that I want to retell this one: an everlasting image of a huge moon over Stanage that engulfed the sky and a conversation I had with my father, aged ten We were about to set off home after a day on the Edge, ready to make the trek down the well-worn
path towards the car park along the roadside – where tourists regularly laid out their picnic rugs and attracted the derision of the climbers who rolled any available millstones in their direction.
Words: Fiona Richardson
Pat Fearnehough was killed in the Himalayas in 1978. His grit kid Sally is still a friend of mine, and Auntie Sandra still tells tales of his temper. Paul Nunn was killed in the Himalayas in 1995. His grit kid Louise is still a friend of mine, and his grit kid Rachel is often in my thoughts.
He’d been climbing with Uncle Pat Fearnehough, and had given him a lift out to Stanage. Uncle Pat was a bad-tempered bloke, and I was afraid of his explosive temper and volatile moods in general. But on this evening in the late 70s, the moon was full and I was slightly less afraid. Uncle Pat put on his running shoes, and my Dad asked him if he was coming back with us in the van. “No,” he replied, “I’m running back”.
I asked Dad if he was running “all the way back to Sheffield?” As a ten-year-old, the distance, to me, was incomprehensible, and with the gathering shadows of heather and boulders creeping up around us, it seemed illogical. “Yes, all the way back. He’ll be fine,” Dad reassured me. And I watched his darkening silhouette against the moor and the orange moon. I was in awe. And I still am. These men were fierce, they were brave, they were our heroes, they were our fathers and we were part of a family which has never faded.
Fiona was inspired to write these memories after sending in her late father’s photos for the new BMC Gallery of Mountaineering. The Gallery is a new project which aims to provide a home for the images – and stories behind them – from the past 100 years of climbing and mountaineering.
View it at
http://bmc.photoshelter.com/ Find out more:
www.thebmc.co.uk/what-is-the-bmc-gallery-of-mountaineering
Pat Fearnehough climbing The Sloth in 1960.
28 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
PHOTO: MIKE RICHARDSON.
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