The Blind Man of Hoy by Red Szell

Author:Red Szell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2015-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

15

Peak Practice

‘Good climbing and good company often go together. Each is inseparable to the enjoyment of the other.’

– Tom Patey, One Man’s Mountains

A month to go and things on the climbing front were well on track too. I was up to a full quota of pull-ups, press-ups, crunches and frencheys and could hang from each arm for 30 seconds apiece (ten times longer than in January!) – was it any wonder I felt the call of the wild?

Matthew, Andres and I had a long-overdue date with Yorkshire gritstone, but busy diaries and wet weather had stood in our way since my return from the Highlands at the beginning of April. Time, however, was now short, and I was itching to get back out on rock again. Reasoning we’d need at least three weeks for any sprains, strains or abrasions to heal we moved things around and found a weekend that most of us (though sadly not Cole or Trevor) could manage. With great good fortune it was also a weekend my friend John was staying in London.

Born and brought up in Buxton, John now lives round the corner from me. Shortly after his mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, he had the chance to buy the semi next door to his parents, meaning he and his young family could visit regularly without feeling they were crowding his mum and dad.

John senior and I have met many times over the years and shared our thoughts on the cruelty of a disease that has robbed him of his wife and me of my mother. Paying him a visit while we stayed next door in his son’s house was not so much a small price to pay for our accommodation, as a pleasure. When he also turned out to be a meteorologist, John senior emerged as the saviour of our weekend.

The weather turned foul the moment we passed Derby, making the Peaks truly dark the closer we got to them. Matthew was driving, an activity that makes him ratty at the best of times and Andres was lolling in the back, fiddling with his iPhone like a hairy, overgrown teenager. With us was Matt Groom, a 26-year-old Special Needs Teacher and part-time instructor at Swiss, who is part of the Rusty Peg crew and climbs regularly with Cole. Slight, agile and calm he possesses all the poise, charm and fair-haired good looks that one associates with a young English gentleman who is also a jobbing actor.

It was Friday night and we arrived in Buxton in time for last orders, so hit the local dive and swilled enough ale to sleep soundly despite the drumming rain. Those of us who woke at 7.00 the next morning took a view and went back to sleep until 10.00, when we were woken by a distinct diminution in the background noise and a hint of colour in the light outside.

Over bacon and eggs Matt checked the guidebook for routes near The Sloth – an enormous overhang with huge jug holds that Cole had recommended as preparation for the Old Man.

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