The Blind Man of Hoy Read online

  Born in 1969, Redmond Széll grew up in rural West Sussex on a diet of classic adventure and crime stories. After studying English at Cambridge and a brief spell working as a mortuary porter he moved to London to pursue a career in journalism. A stay-at-home dad since the first of his two daughters was born in 2000 he divides his time between writing, climbing and housework.

  Also by this author

  Blind Trust

  THE BLIND MAN OF HOY

  Red Széll

  First published in Great Britain

  and the United States of America

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  Dochcarty Road

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9UG

  Scotland.

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  © Redmond Széll 2015

  Foreword © Chris Bonington 2015

  Editor: Robert Davidson

  Photo section: Heather MacPherson

  Technical assistance: David Ritchie

  Proof: Roger Smith

  The moral right of Redmond Szell to be recognised as the

  author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  The table in Appendix 2 is reproduced by permission of Rockfax.

  © Rockfax 2002, 2008 – www.rockfax.com

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-910124-22-2

  ISBNe: 978-1-910124-23-9

  Cover design by David Wardle at Bold and Noble

  Ebook by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  To Matthew for faith, forthrightness and friendship

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  Foreword by Sir Chris Bonington

  Fact File

  1. Facing Up

  2. Getting Off

  3. Formation and Partial Collapse

  4. Breaking Out of Solitary

  5. Gearing Up

  6. The Cole Styron Workout – Part 1

  7. Al Alvarez

  8. The Cole Styron Workout – Part 2

  9. Crack Team

  10. Seeking Professional Help

  11. Highland Fling

  12. The Diff to End all Diffs

  13. Down to Earth

  14. Out-of-Touch and In-Touch

  15. Peak Practice

  16. Buffing Up

  17. Day 1, Journey to Hoy

  18. Day 2, All Talk, No Action

  19. Day 3, First Ascent of the Old Man by a Blind Man

  20. Day 4, Take Two

  21. Touchdown

  22. What Goes Up

  Appendix A: Glossary of some of the more commonly used rock climbing terms

  Appendix B: Rockfax Climbing Grade Table

  List of Illustrations

  1. Red at Swiss Cottage climbing wall (photo: Matthew Wootliff)

  2. A guiding hand from Matthew (photo: Andres Cervantes)

  3. Martin leading off Cioch Nose, note the climbing shoes and the rocky ground! (photo: Alex Moran)

  4. Route Three, Diabaig (photo: Martin Moran)

  5. Crack climbing using the elevator door technique at Latheronwheel (photo: Nick Carter)

  6. Red, Keith, Andres & Martin on the ferry to Stromness (photo: Matthew Wootliff)

  7. Hoy’s dramatic coastline bathed in perfect evening light, from the ferry (photo: Keith Partridge)

  8. The long walk-in, the Old Man in the distance (photo: Nick Carter)

  9. Having got him kitted out for the climb, Red’s entourage tries to convince him that the Old Man doesn’t look so big . . . from the promontory (photo: Keith Partridge)

  10. The long and precipitous descent down the cliff (photo: Matthew Wootliff)

  11. The route (photo: Mike Lee, art: Jim Buchanan)

  12. Nick jumaring just above Red (photo: Martin Moran)

  13. The Crux Pitch (photo: Keith Partridge)

  14. Nick jumaring just above Red at The Coffin (photo: Martin Moran)

  15. Red exiting The Coffin (photo: Keith Partridge)

  16. Keith and Andres filming the climb (photo: Matthew Wootliff)

  17. It’s a long way down and a long way up and it’s steep rock all the way (photo: Keith Partridge)

  18. Approaching the sanctuary of the second belay stance (photo: Keith Partridge)

  19. A quick rest before the final pitch (photo: Nick Carter)

  20. Near the summit there’s a cleft through the rock as if some giant had taken an axe to the summit (photo: Keith Partridge)

  21. Rock Gods: Nick, Martin & Red at the summit (photo: Keith Partridge)

  22. Signing the log book at the summit (photo: Nick Carter)

  23. Abseiling off – Red and Martin (photo: Keith Partridge)

  24. Nick abseiling in midair (photo: Keith Partridge)

  25. Friends reunited (photo: Nick Carter)

  26. Red during cliff-top interview with Keith (photo: Keith Partridge)

  Acknowledgements

  None of this would have been possible without a small army of very supportive and selfless people who gave help, encouragement, time, equipment, advice and expertise freely and without much of the grumbling they often received in return from me. Thank you all!

  Andres and Cole without whose supreme efforts I would never have made it past the first pitch; and Dan, Isabel, Jimena, Matt and Trevor who, like everyone at Climb London, provided excellent, professional training with boundless patience. I am especially indebted to Paul Ackland of High Sports for giving me free access to all the CL walls. Also Rob and Tom at Mammut for kitting me out for the climb.

  Peter, Lee, Cheryl and the many listeners to In Touch whose support was so vital in making this adventure more than just a personal undertaking and who, like Steve Bate, reminded me that I am part of a community.

  David Head and all at RP Fighting Blindness for running the donations side and being that rare thing, a representative charity in a world of careerist fundraisers.

  Omri for designing the webpage and keeping people posted.

  Piers, Poh Sim, Al and Anne for wise counsel, delicious tea, poetry and nudging me in the direction of Highgate ponds. And The EGLST (Tom in particular) for persuading me to take the plunge.

  Meg Wickes at Triple Echo and Keith Partridge for giving me the best holiday video ever!

  Martin and Nick for having confidence in my abilities and for getting me to the summit and back again safely and, like Keith, Matthew and Andres being kind enough to allow me to reproduce their excellent photos.

  Bill, Hannah and particularly Dad for braving the first draft of the book. Carl and Tom Bauer for de-chossing the glossary and Alan James at Rockfax for allowing me to reproduce his excellent table explaining the arcana of route grading.

  Robert Davidson at Sandstone Press for believing in this story and making it better with his thoughtful editing.

  Last but by no means least Kate, Laura and Megan for their unfaltering love and for putting up with my black moods and press-ups at breakfast.

  Foreword

  ‘After we gave up our attempt on the South West Face of Everest in November 1972, I remember saying to Chris Brasher who had come out to Base Camp to report our story for The Observer: “Climbing is all about gambling. It’s not about sure things. It’s about challenging the impossible. I think we have found that the South West Face of Everest in the post-monsoon period is impossible!” Rash words for, of course, the story of mountaineering has proven time and again that there is no such
thing as impossible.’

  Those words are taken from the first chapter of a book I wrote as long ago as 1976, Everest the Hard Way, after a second attempt with a new team had succeeded in the same ‘impossible’ mission. On that occasion we put four climbers on the summit, Dougal Haston, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Pertemba Sherpa, and possibly a fifth in Mick Burke who did not return. Teamwork had been of the essence as it is on all expeditions.

  Ten years before the publication of that book I joined Tom Patey and Rusty Bailie to climb the Old Man of Hoy for the first time, repeating the following year on one of the BBC’s first major outside broadcasts. Again, on both occasions, teamwork was of the essence.

  These thoughts are prompted by reading Red Széll’s vivid and moving account of the first successful ascent of the Old Man of Hoy by a registered blind climber. Before his great achievement many people would have regarded such a feat as impossible. Again though, teamwork was of the essence, and the team that Red put together of professional climbers Martin Moran and Nick Carter, Keith Partridge, who is probably the world’s leading adventure cameraman, and Red’s two friends Andres Cervantes and Matthew Wootliff, proved to be a sound one. There is a wider team whom the author has properly credited in his Acknowledgements.

  History tells us that when the impossible has been achieved it is likely to be repeated in short order. No doubt this will be as true of Red’s ascent of the Old Man ‘the hard way’ as it was after Hillary and Tensing’s first ascent of Everest, and it will similarly be repeated. There is something special about being the first though, about being the one who steps forward and says: ‘Can’t be done? I’ll show ya’!’

  Red’s climb, and the excellent book he has written about it, are lyrical and inspiring. They attest to the need for challenge and the value of comradeship. In adversity there is solidarity and behind the dark curtain that Retinitis Pigmentosa has thrown over his eyes there still shines a light. Red climbs because he is a climber as are few people and in that fact lies a mystery which I feel we must let rest. Some can’t, some must, but there is no such thing as impossible.

  Sir Chris Bonington CVO CBE DL

  The Old Man of Hoy Fact File

  It is located off Hoy, second largest of the Orkney Islands, Scotland

  It is a pillar of Old Red Sandstone standing on a plinth of igneous basalt

  It stands 449 feet (137 metres) high

  It was formed by the sea eroding the cliff it was once part of

  Though the rock it’s made of is over 500 million years old, the stack itself has stood for less than 400 years.

  The same erosion that formed it could topple it at any time

  It was first climbed in 1966, 13 years after Everest, by (now Sir) Chris Bonington, Tom Patey and Rusty Baillie

  In 1967 an estimated 15 million people watched The Big Climb, a live broadcast by the BBC following an elite group of climbers (including Bonington and Patey) as they tackled the Old Man via three different routes.

  Usually the stack is climbed in five sections, or pitches, and descended in three abseils

  The Old Man of Hoy appears both in an episode of Monty Python and in the video to ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ by the Eurythmics

  In 2013 Red Széll attempted to become the first blind person to make the climb, the subject of this book

  ‘We see with our brain not with our eyes’

  – Paul Bach-y-Rita quoted in

  The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

  1

  Facing Up

  ‘The Old Man of Hoy – 450 feet of crumbling sandstone rock rising out of the North Atlantic off the islands of Orkney . . . the most awesome pinnacle in the British Isles.’

  – Chris Brasher, The Big Climb

  June 2013

  Nothing can prepare you for coming face to face with the Old Man of Hoy.

  For months I’d glibly told people that I was going to climb this sea stack roughly the shape and size of the Gherkin. From the top of the promontory it was once the tip of, the Old Man hadn’t appeared too intimidating, but with each precarious step down the shattered cliff it had loomed larger, so by the time I was standing on the rockfall causeway that used to form its mighty arch, the giant’s stated height looked to be an underestimate.

  As a teenager in the mid-1980s I’d watched Chris Bonington and Joe Brown scale this perpendicular monolith in a documentary about The Big Climb (the BBC’s epic live coverage of their 1967 ascent) and thought, ‘I want to do that’.

  Within a year I’d found a way to go rock-climbing through school and got hooked.

  Aged 19 I’d discovered I was going blind. It was like taking a long fall and wondering whether the person belaying was ever going to stop the rope. After a brief battle I’d hung up my harness for the best part of 20 years and tried to ignore the cravings.

  What vision I have left now is like looking into a smoke-filled room through a keyhole – I catch glimpses of parts of things. If they lie at the lower end of the colour spectrum and stay still long enough, I sometimes stand a chance of identifying what they are. The red Orcadian sandstone ahead of me was the colour of dried blood and as unlikely to move. I took it in in stages – a lot of stages.

  Martin Moran, the mountain guide who was leading this climb, set off first, the protection (the metal wedges and bolts he’d insert at intervals into cracks in the rock and through which he’d run the rope to catch him should he fall) jangling at his belt like wind chimes. I followed their progress, trying to visualise the line he was taking. After quarter of an hour he stopped and shortly thereafter I felt three tugs on my rope, the signal he was ready for me to follow.

  The rock was cold and damp. I explored it with my fingers, testing its slowly decaying strength, before settling on a couple of firm holds. Sea birds wheeled overhead, surfing the light southerly breeze. I took a deep breath, grimaced at Keith the cameraman and stepped up to the first ledge. Only another 444 feet to go. Oh, and the overhanging crux. And all of it being recorded for posterity by TV and radio!

  If dreams can be planned, this one had got a bit out of hand. My simple wish to emulate Bonington and Brown had gone awry the moment I’d received my diagnosis, but should this attempt at dream-fulfilment turn into a nightmare it would be with national coverage and everlasting documentary proof.

  2

  Getting Off

  ‘Much of what goes by the name of pleasure is simply an effort to destroy consciousness.’

  – George Orwell

  December 2012

  It’s the week before Christmas and I’ve just knocked back my fifth glass of Rioja on top of at least three glasses of champagne. The hostess is chattering away but my attention is more focussed on the silk-clad breast pressing insistently against my forearm. Its owner, one of the mums from my younger daughter’s class, is becoming tipsily affectionate. I accept another glass from a passing waitress, swig it down in two gulps and wait for it to numb my sense of dislocation.

  I’m not in a good place. Sure the party’s great; I’m among friends, happily married with two delightful daughters, but inside there’s this constant, leaded ache that poisons my thoughts and refuses to recede.

  I knock back another glass and wish that people still smoked at the parties I get invited to. Oh-oh, bladder calling. Maybe I should ask the affectionate yummy mummy to help me downstairs to the loo; who knows what might happen?

  Something snaps and snarls: ‘You’re beginning to sound like Joe Wynde and he’s such a useless, dysfunctional prick he can’t even nail his second case!’

  For the past seven months I’ve sat staring into space trying to bludgeon the plot of the sequel to my debut crime novel into something worth submitting for publication. Joe Wynde, my protagonist, may share several of my outward characteristics including visual impairment, but his morbid sense of loss allows him to cross lines I only feel comfortable approaching in fiction. Blind as I am, I could never look my wife and daughters in the eye otherwise.r />
  A year and a half ago, when Blind Trust had been published, I’d thought at last I’d found a way of harnessing, if not taming, my depression. I’d made it past base camp in the writing world, and with moderately good sales and an audiobook version in my rucksack was well equipped to climb further, but with my new plot tangled and knotted it seems now I’m just left with a longer drop back down.

  The waitress has refilled my glass. I lean back into a pillar, away from temptation, and take another swig. Painkiller/ time-killer: I’ve been doing this with one substance or another for more than half my life, only of late the quantities and frequency have been increasing. It’s boring, I’m boring – I’m bored.

  I’m in a rut, which as some wag once pointed out, is just an endless coffin. Time to climb out.

  A familiar raucous laugh guides me across the room. Swaying slightly I wait for a break in the conversation. All of a sudden I feel good; positive and pain-free; relaxed and ready.

  ‘Evening Mr Szell, you look like you’re having a good time.’ As ever the ambiguity is there, like a boxer’s dance before he gets stuck in.

  ‘Hey, Matthew. Fuck it, I give in. Let’s do it. Let’s climb the bastard.’

  ‘Really?’ That wrong-footed him, though he’s still wary. Hardly surprising after my prevarication.

  ‘Yes, really! I want to give it a go – climb the Old Man of Hoy this summer – definitely.’

  ‘Fucking yes! Brilliant! That’s great.’ And he’s slapping me on the back and my glass gets refilled and this time I knock it back in celebration.

  ‘What made you decide to say yes at last?’ he asks a few minutes later, after we’ve explained the commotion to some stunned fellow guests who I suspect think it’s the wine talking.