Calliope Nightmares (Surgeons Saunter HVS 5b Stanage)
Anthony Williams
The road from Liverpool rolled swiftly beneath my ageing Saab heading
east towards the dark, misty mass of the Kinder Plateau. The day had
started out as overcast and unpromising but had now turned to wet and
depressing. For a day in the hills I would have felt that time was being
well and truly wasted, but today I was going to meet Arthur again and
things never stayed dull for long in his company. I wondered what he
would look like back in his home territory. Would I recognise him away
from the sun-drenched cliffs of Cornwall where he had seen a poor
beginner fumbling his way up an insecurely fixed top rope and had taken
him under his wing?
The main street through Glossop that early Saturday morning in late
October was very busy despite the poor weather. Half the population, at
least those over forty, were decked out in various versions of
Victoriana and up in the centre of the town the bright lights of a
Victorian fairground twinkled through the drizzle. I drove down a side
street and found somewhere to park.
'I'm looking after a ride for a mate', had been Arthur's message and the
only directions he had cared to offer. But that had not surprised me
because he never made life easy. If he had any credo at all it was that
you had to work things out for yourself and this often made him seem
unhelpful, occasionally downright unfriendly. I walked back down the
street onto the main road and headed for the fairground in the small
square in front of a Victorian building that could possibly have been
the town hall. Dodgems, side-shows, a rifle booth, swing boats and an
old roundabout of freshly painted horses squeezed snugly together on the
gritstone flags. At this early hour none of them were busy. A few
youngsters, abandoned by their parents in favour of the Saturday
shopping were busy spending their bribes on the rides.
I recognised Arthur by the way he stood, leaning slightly backwards,
rocking gently on his feet and staring upwards and outwards as if deep
in thought. The rest I didn't recognise. The man was wearing an old
American army parka with its hood half torn from its moorings, a pair of
bright red tracksuit bottoms with white action stripes down the outside
of each leg and a greasy-looking flat cap perched on what I knew to be
closely cropped, greying hair surrounding a weather-beaten bald patch.
His 'Hi Tec' trainer shoes were brand new. His hands were stuffed deeply
into his parka pockets.
I called out 'Arthur' with a slightly questioning intonation as if I
wasn't quite sure, but I was absolutely certain.
"Ant ……… Not up to much is it…………….…………… Be all right though."
The cigarette, a hand-rolled job, wobbled up and down between his lips
as he offered his minimal greeting. It felt as if I had just returned
from popping out to chemists, rather than meeting up again after more
than a year. His long smokers face with its half-lidded eyes and deep
creases stared out quizzically from under his dirty old cap. He gave me
a long, but not unfriendly stare and then looked down at his feet and
the wet paving stones. There was a slightly uncomfortable pause as he
turned half away from me to glance at the roundabout that I guessed he
was 'minding'.
I stood by his side and stared at the same spot and waited. The wailing
of the roundabout calliope ceased and the hissing from its steam-driven
engine filled the gap. Arthur walked over to it, pulled at a lever or
two and the roundabout horses slowly rose up and down for a few moments
until quietly settling into stillness. Two small boys climbed off their
mounts and walked away towards the rifle booth without much enthusiasm.
Arthur fiddled with some more pieces of arcane metal work and the
calliope sprang to life with more music hall madness. The horses stared
straight ahead into their gathering night, waiting to continue their
cosmic progress. Like a small bird making its yearly visit to a gigantic
block of obsidian and sharpening its beak on its smooth surface in the
hope of eventually wearing it out, those steeds would continue to gaze
in their timeless, unchanging way until time itself ran out.
I felt cold. Water dripped down my neck to remind me that it was now
raining properly and I shoved my hood disconsolately over my brows to
give me some shelter. A boy and girl poked some coins into Arthur's hand
and climbed up onto the ride. Arthur spun a large, painted wheel and the
roundabout creaked into motion. "Please don't go backwards", I thought,
remembering that wonderful story by Ray Bradbury which I think was
called 'Something wicked this way comes.' It gave me a chill when I read
it and I was getting the same feeling now. It felt as if night was
gathering and there was nothing left to look forward to. I stared down
into a growing puddle and watched a film of diesel oil spread its
rainbow swirls across its surface as the calliope filled my head with
its false gaiety.
Arthur walked back, stood on the same spot and stared into space, a
small curl of smoke drifting away from his roll-up. I noticed how really
ancient his parka was. The cuffs, the edges of the pockets and the
collar were shiny with age. The fabric seemed to have become tanned with
long and continual use, like poor quality leather. It seemed to go with
the man.
To look at him you would never guess that he was married to a young and
very attractive girl who spent much of her time keeping herself in
really good shape for him. He spent every summer in West Penwith on the
Atlantic tip of Cornwall trying to keep her as naked as possible for as
long as possible. I'd accidentally stumbled on them on a couple of
occasions as they sunbathed in hidden spots along the cliffs but Arthur
never seemed bothered by these intrusions. Get him on the rock and a
different character revealed itself. He was tough and serious, and
avoidable errors were greeted with sharp correction. We climbed many
routes together on the strange greenstone cliffs around Pendeen Watch
and Trewellard where the last remaining tin mine in the country
stretched itself out under the sea below us. Here I learned to respect
the uncertain nature of the rock and the need to be sure of belays and
runners. When we moved further south onto the granite of Bosigran,
Sennen and Chair Ladders he taught me the need for boldness and momentum
and under his tutelage I began to develop a 'head' for bigger routes. By
the end of our first summer season I was tackling routes of some
seriousness and had become stronger especially in my shoulders and
hands.
Several summers passed and Arthur and I were the best of friends having
kept each other safe on many adventures. Then things changed. Arthur was
having problems at work that he wouldn't talk about. He failed to turn
up in Cornwall and didn't answer phone calls. I climbed with others and
then, out of the blue, came a letter. Arthur had moved to Stockport, was
working as an odd job man, and was climbing now and then on gritstone.
"Come over on Saturday if you can. We can do a bit up on Stanage".
After all the excitement and anticipation of finally getting to grips
with 'grit' I was now feeling depressed, in this wet little town, bored,
and waiting for something to happen, and Arthur was bad at conversation.
A sad, roly-poly kind of bloke dressed in an awful pale blue shell suit
and loud trainers rolled with a docker's gait towards us. "This is him",
muttered Arthur. "Wife's just left him. Think she burned all his
clothes. Daft bastard."
"Cheers mate. There you go." The awful man slapped some notes into
Arthur's palm, patted him once or twice on his back and went to check
out the roundabout. Arthur blew a long snake of smoke into the drizzle,
stuffed his hands in his pockets and strolled off towards an old green
van parked in the corner of the square.
We gathered out gear together in his van and set off up the Snake Pass
towards Sheffield. The van stank of beer and smoke and the passenger
seat was broken and flopped backwards every time we accelerated. "This
is crap, Arthur", I yelled provocatively above the grinding of the gears
and the snorting of the exhaust. "Doesn't need to be pretty where we're
going", he grinned.
Where we were going was Stanage North End and by the time we left the
Ladybower reservoir in the Derwent valley the ground was dry and the
weather just dull and overcast. "I said it would be all right, didn't
I?" said Arthur. "When was that?" I grumped back at him as the seat
springs dug further into by backside. He bumped the van up onto the
grassy edge of the road opposite a gate and we clambered out. I looked
around for my first view of God's own rock and could see nothing but
moorland.
We stumped off along a sandy track, dodging the odd boggy patch until I
could see some low brown crags forming a kind of escarpment facing
towards the Kinder plateau. Suddenly Arthur started chatting away
cheerfully as if a great weight had been lifted from his spirit. This
was the best rock in the world, unsurpassable grip, beautiful forms, the
best cracks for jamming anywhere on the planet. "You've just got to get
going on this stuff, Ant, no messing about, trust your feet, tough it
out, and don't fall off 'cos the landings are horrible."
I expected to see higher crags. These were disappointingly low, barely
thirty to forty feet high. Some of the cracks looked wet and uninviting
and there were boulders all around to snap your ankles in a fall.
"We're going to do 'Surgeon's Saunter' and you'll probably need one by
the time we're finished", Arthur chuckled.
"They're not very big, Arthur."
"You'll wish they were smaller."
We stood in a damp pit looking up at a crack that started at thumb width
and then grew to fist width as it made its way up through a series of
narrow, rounded ledges until it disappeared amongst some dark blocks at
the top. The start looked impossible until Arthur avoided it completely
by climbing onto a large block that brought him within reach of the
narrow part of the crack.
"It starts here," he called down as I tried to instil some kind of order
into our ropes.
"Watch me closely 'cos the starts a bit weird."
And then he was up and away, his big hands gripping in the crack as he
swung first to one side, then the other. Hand over hand in a definite
rhythm he moved quickly up the crag. At half way he paused to slot a
large hex into the crack, clipped his rope in and thirty seconds later
disappeared over the top.
"Safe! Take me off"…………….. "Climb when you're ready!" ………
Bugger. How did he do that start. I looked around. The narrow part of
the crack would take a finger jam but it was just out of reach. I
stretched up pathetically and felt the roughness of the rock. Facing
left, I could press a foot against the rock above the dark pit. A slip
would send me down there. I dug my fingers into the remains of the crack
lower down in the vain hope of getting some kind of grip. A tried a
series of weak little jumps to try to reach up into the crack but it got
me nowhere. Then I noticed a hold out to the right behind my head and up
a bit. I could pull up on it a little with my right hand but I would
have to pull diagonally upwards while pushing up on my left foot in
order to move up towards the crack. Raising my left foot a little higher
I pushed and pulled simultaneously as my left hand sought the base of
the crack. I rose a few inches but the strain on my right arm seemed
unbearable and I gave up on the attempt.
There followed ten minutes of rock fondling accompanied by silly little
jumps, with frustration mounting all the time. How do you move on this
stuff, I wondered. I just didn't seem to be built for this kind of
climbing. Think I'll taking up playing the piano ….. or knitting.
Then the voice of God spake.
"You know your trouble Williams …… You just don't want to bite the
bullet!"
There was real scorn in that voice. I looked furiously upwards to see an
expressionless face topped by that filthy flat cap of his staring down,
and I knew he meant every word.
"You unsympathetic bastard," I yelled up and threw myself one last time
up the wall. I don't quite know what I did but it worked and my first
two fingers slotted into the lower part of the crack, twisted and jammed
snugly into place. A strong pull and I found myself able to slot the
next hand jam firmly into place, my feet scrabbling for purchase. Boots
gripped, hands held firmly, and exhilaration drove me upwards.
Blood trickled down my sleeve.
By the time I reached his hex runner it had dawned on me that grit was,
well, gritty, and some grit is sharp and if you squeeze a hand jam too
strongly, the grit tears into your skin. The backs of my hands were now
a real mess, but I was on my way and a few strong pulls later found me
staring into a face creased with laughter.
"Good name, eh? Now. Do you fancy 'Old Salt'?"
(N.B. Surgeon's Saunter HVS 5b *** in old Stanage guide.)
--
Ant Williams
Tony Buckley
> Calliope Nightmares
and extremely well written it was too; nice one, that man.
Tony
Arnaud
"Anthony Williams" <a...@antwilliams.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:DHV6m1BO...@antwilliams.demon.co.uk...
> Calliope Nightmares
<..>
Catching up on the group after hols, excellent stuff Ant.
A.-
Steve Pardoe
news:3d076807$1...@news.umist.ac.uk...
Indeed.
So, how was Corsica?
S
Arnaud
"Steve Pardoe" <ste...@AMpardoes.com> wrote in message
news:uger40j...@corp.supernews.com...
do you expect... Indulged in many family friendly activities from extreme
sandcastle building to fish grilling and sea urchins (sp?) fishing. Top.
Now I'm scratching my head about going there instead of the Alps for my
anual alpine trip late summer. Their mountains are beautiful.
A.-