Ken Wilson RIP

Dave Turnbull, chief executive officer of the BMC, said: "Ken was one of the great characters of the last half century of British and world mountaineering – knowledgeable, passionate, committed, inquisitive, loud, annoying, blunt, unstoppable, bombastic, pure and proper grassroots with a deep-rooted conviction as the self-appointed champion of climbing ethics; without Ken British climbing would be in much poorer place than it is today. Ken made an impact wherever he went, he will be a hard act to follow and will be missed by many."

I didn't really know Ken but met him on numerous occasions. It was, however, the first of those meetings that sticks in my mind and which sort of set the tone. It was aboard the Lundy Gannet in nineteen seventy something. We were a group of five or six climbers of very modest abilities. Another largish group contained the likes of Littlejohn and Keith Darbyshire, maybe Bob Moulton(?)... and Ken, who lurched across to us. His opening salvo went something like:

'Right. What grade do you climb?' (Luckily this wasn't directed at me but at Joe.)
'Oh, about VDiff or Severe...' (Joe had been taken aback at Ken's direct approach was being rather over modest, but not by that much.)
'WHAT? Lundy is about THE BIGGEST BOOM that BRITISH CLIMBING has ever SEEN... and YOU come here climbing SEVERE??!'

Brilliant!

On the way back aboard the violently bobbing Gannet, Ken was waxing lyrical to us about one of his team's (the A-team, of course) new routes, using every superlative under the sun, when the author of said route came over and said:

'But Ken, you haven't done it!'
Ken wasn't fazed in the slightest and shot back:
'Yes. But I KNOW!'

Fast forward thirty years or so when he was in the throes of reprinting Rébuffat's 100 best in the Mont Blanc massif, I remember him trying to persuade Madame Rébuffat to allow him to replace the Bonatti Pillar with something else - something that was still standing - maybe one of the Brouillard routes. Mme Rébuffat stood her ground and firmly refused to have her husband's masterpiece sullied, even though that part of the Dru was long since departed. I'd love to have heard that conversation!

Henry Barber took me to meet Ken in the late 90s, thinking we would come to blows. Ken gave me a grilling about my climbing and when I told him, as he dragged each detail out of me in his usual commanding fashion, about my first Alpine season, 11 peaks in 11 days, including 6 of the 7 highest peaks in the Alps, he became a fan. Other climbers weren't interested in what I was doing because they were all interested in their own projects. 'Do you know what she's done?' Ken turned around and barked at Henry. I became good friends with Ken and his wife, Gloria, always being welcomed into their big rambling home when I was up their way, going to the Lowry Museum together on a day too wet to climb, dissecting debates on climbing and world peace alike. Time with Ken was like several rounds in the boxing ring, but much more fun. One of my over riding memories was of being driven across Deryshire with Ken and Gloria in the front (he loved driving and was 'an expert' at that too) with me and my young daughter Becky in the back, all singing Old McDonald Had a Farm at full throttle. You challenged us and made us laugh in equal measure Ken. You are missed.

I've worn out two editions of Games Climbers Play and working on the third.

Same here! The glue in the binding blows out and the book cracks apart into several big pieces. I'm on #3, exactly, but I still have the first edition copy, sort of held together with scotch tape and duct tape but missing the cover. It's hard to keep a paperback of that thickness and size, and that weight paper, from breaking apart. Add the wear and tear of being thrown around in cars and tents, there you go.

In the 1980's he led the charge, both verbally, in print and at the crag, against the threat that bolts and sport climbing posed to traditional climbing.

We must tenaciously protect our current and highly effective methods of identifying top performers and reject these periodic pressures to adapt the sport in an attempt to convert climbers into conventional sporting heroes ... all in the interests of state pride and marketable commercialism.

all good things come to an end