The Blind Man of Hoy Read online

  As with all diseases there have been many false dawns and miraculous breakthroughs trumpeted for blindness over the years. I have always maintained a healthy skepticism, believing that a cure will be found someday but probably not in my lifetime. Having your hopes repeatedly dashed just adds insult to the welter of injuries sight loss causes. However the speed of recent progress in the fields of gene therapy and stem cell technology (also being investigated at UCL) has made me re-evaluate that view. I now believe that my generation might well be the last to lose its sight to Retinitis Pigmentosa.

  Mine is the X-linked variety, passed down the generations in the same way as haemophilia; children of a parent with the faulty gene have a 50-50 chance of inheriting it. Women with the gene are unaffected because they have a spare X chromosome as back-up, but the men develop RP. Both my brother and I have RP and my sister is a carrier, as are my two daughters. We don’t know yet whether my nephew has been lucky or unlucky in the genetic lottery.

  As far as I’m concerned blindness has become so much part of life that I’m not sure how I’d respond to its absence. I’m not saying I’d refuse gene or stem cell therapy (though I’d prefer not to be one of the guinea pigs) and I’d certainly be grateful if my degeneration could be halted, but I also have concerns about the possible side effects of a cure. Living with a degenerative disability is psychologically gruelling and requires a degree of acceptance and adoption of the condition that has made my blindness part of me.

  I would however not wish RP on anyone, and realise that I am more fortunate in my circumstances than many of my fellow sufferers. Once Matthew pointed out that I had the chance to make a real difference; that in making a little bit of history I could help make RP history; it would have seemed churlish not to raise funds for the Gene Team at UCL.

  The Chief Executive of RPFB, was himself planning an assault on Kilimanjaro so was very receptive. Once he’d satisfied himself that I was taking all necessary precautions, he suggested setting up a JustGiving page to publicise ‘my challenge,’ provide a link to the existing Gene Team appeal and facilitate the collection of overseas donations and Gift Aid. Recognising in me a lack of technological know-how, he offered to set the page up once I’d got the go-ahead from Martin and provided some text and photos.

  Not long after my return from Scotland the page was up and running, complete with some excellent action shots taken by Nick and Martin and a truly intimidating photograph of the Old Man itself. I copied the link into an email I’d already prepared and shortly thereafter it began to appear in inboxes everywhere.

  £1,000 was donated in the first 24 hours; more than £5,000 by the end of a fortnight! It was humbling to read the messages and know that so many people, some of whom I know well, some hardly at all, some anonymous, all encouraging and supportive, had been so generous in coin and spirit. Matthew had of course been right, and rather than it feeling as if I was using charity to justify the trip of a lifetime, I felt delighted that I was sharing the ride with so many other people.

  There was, of course a flipside. I was no longer carrying solely my own expectations, and the question posed by one sponsor ‘Do we get our money back if you fall off?’ now hung in the background, making me even more determined to succeed.

  Momentum began to build, carrying news of my attempt further and wider each day. This was due in no small part to the efforts of another dad from school, illustrator and author Omri Stephenson who designed and maintained a Facebook page for us and kept everyone up-to-date.

  With a couple of magazines expressing interest in the story and an interview on BBC Radio 4’s In Touch programme in the offing, I decided to contact the RNIB. I hoped that they too might view the climb as inspirational and use it to raise awareness, give hope and challenge prejudice. The answer I received shocked even my jaded sensibilities.

  ‘What’s in this for us? I’m sure we could do something if you were prepared to give at least a proportion of the funds raised to the RNIB, otherwise we can’t really help you.’

  It was like my MP demanding cash for questions. ‘But, you’re supposed to represent all of us; to spread news that may be of interest to blind and partially sighted people, to help us lead independent, fulfilling lives. This isn’t just about the money!’

  ‘Why should we help another charity raise funds?’

  ‘Because those funds might help make sight loss a thing of the past for everyone. Because it’s in the interests of every blind person you are supposed to want to help!’

  This cut no ice. I suppose news of a potential cure threatened her career trajectory. I hope it comes before she, like her predecessor, demonstrates her commitment to blind people by taking a better-paid job at a cancer charity.

  Unlike the RNIB, Peter White, the presenter of In Touch (and numerous other radio programmes) likes the visually impaired to have a bit of fight in them. Blind from birth, Peter has not allowed others to define the limits of his abilities and has become one of the BBC’s most respected broadcasters.

  I am grateful to RP for giving me the opportunity to work with Peter and the rest of the In Touch team. Since first being invited on to talk about my own book, I have been asked back to review audiobooks, discuss how the new Personal Independence Payments for disabled people will affect me and even been interviewed halfway up a climbing wall!

  Far more of my life has been spent listening to BBC Radio than watching TV and I feel a happy sense of belonging whenever I visit Broadcasting House. While I waited in the foyer for Lee Kumutat, the Assistant Producer, and her guide dog Jake, I listened happily as groups of tourists were guided round, soaking up the building’s history and proud that snippets of my existence were and would be part of the great BBC archive for generations to come.

  Peter was his usual affable self, keen to hear all about the climb and filling the five minutes before we were due in the studio with friendly banter and genuine warmth. His producer Cheryl Gabriel gave me a hug and a glass of water before I settled down in front of the microphone.

  As the sound engineer checked our levels Peter reminded me that because of BBC rules he could not advertise who I was raising funds for but would certainly mention that I was doing so.

  ‘Oh, and just to let you know I may ask you whether you’d be happy to keep an audio diary?’

  ‘Er, wow, um, yes okay. So long as the equipment’s not too bulky.’

  And then we were off.

  ‘Now this time next month visually impaired writer Red Szell will be leaving the relative comfort of his author’s desk to tackle what’s generally acknowledged to be one of Britain’s toughest ascents for a climber. It’s the Old Man of Hoy a 450 feet so-called sea stack in the Orkneys. It was first climbed by a team led by Chris Bonington indeed it was a television spectacular and I remember it quite well.

  Well, Red is doing it to raise money for research into Retinitis Pigmentosa, the genetic condition which has led to the loss of most of his sight over the years. Only about 2,000 people have ever climbed this. Red started climbing as a schoolboy while his sight was still good, he’s now taken up the hobby again and he’s determined to take on a climb that has always fascinated him.’

  If I’d composed it myself I couldn’t have asked for a better, more flattering introduction; Peter really was a consummate host. Feeling quite at home, I waxed lyrical about the documentary that had first turned me on to the Old Man, described what it looked like, gave a brief summary of what the various climbing grades meant and outlined Cole’s fitness regime. I had described it to Lee when she’d contacted me about appearing on the programme, but now, hearing Peter’s incredulity and Cheryl’s low whistle, hoped that listeners wouldn’t think I was some kind of body Nazi.

  ‘I think we’ll include a clip of you on the climbing wall here,’ Peter explained, ‘to remind people how you’ve been honing your rock climbing techniques. So . . .’

  So has this all been aimed at climbing the Old Man of Hoy?

  It was aimed at getting m
e back out on fairly serious rock climbs.

  I took on the Old Man because my climbing partner Matthew nagged me into it. I mentioned to him that I wanted to do it one day and he was very taken by the idea, he likes a challenge.

  I was delighted I’d succeeded in mentioning Matthew’s key role and knew that if a clip from the climbing wall interview was going to be used then Andres and Cole would also appear. After a brief discussion about the technicalities of scaling the Old Man when you can’t see what you’re doing, Peter asked what he termed ‘the naïve question.’

  Just how dangerous is it?

  I hesitated. My Mum never thought her love of horse-riding dangerous; she knew the risks of course but took precautions against them and enjoyed the ride. It was cancer that caused her premature death. I found myself explaining that I could always be unlucky and get hit by a falling rock or slip and land awkwardly but that I’d be at the end of a rope and everything possible had been done to minimise the danger.

  . . . I’m probably more unsafe crossing the Finchley Road.

  After the derring-do introduction I’d been given, this must have sounded very glib but Peter was not deterred and tried another tack, asking instead:

  What are the most difficult parts of this, technically, for you?

  Technically the two most difficult parts are what are called a traverse where I have to move about ten metres from the left down a couple of metres and across a very thin ledge, at which point I’m about 150 feet up with nothing below me apart from the sea and a half-inch wide ledge. A lot of people get very scared at that point because of exposure; you just feel that there’s nothing underneath you Fortunately, not being able to see very much, in my own mind I’m only ever five inches off the ground, so I shouldn’t imagine that will be too bad. But the bit that really scares me is the overhang, or the Old Man’s belly if you like, I have to go up underneath his belly and that sticks out a good four to five feet and I don’t like hanging upside down and hauling myself up arm over arm so I’m hoping to get that right the first time.

  Now part of this is also to raise money for research into Retinitis Pigmentosa, the condition that you have. How much are you hoping to raise?

  That was a surprise. I hadn’t expected we’d come back to the charitable aspect. Good old Peter – he wasn’t blind to the wider good that a bit of publicity could achieve. But I’d been reluctant to set a target figure. Somehow it seemed grasping when I was delighted just to have people’s support. Put on the spot now I did a quick mental calculation, reduced it by a quarter, rounded it up and said:

  I’d like to raise £10,000. The JustGiving page has been open ten days now and so far we’re up to four and a half thousand pounds so fingers crossed we might even go past the target I’ve nominally got in my head.

  I was still metaphorically mopping my brow and wondering whether I’d answered that one well when the question I’d forgotten about followed hot on its heels.

  With your free hand, how would you like to do an audio diary for us while you’re up there?

  Urgh . . . ah . . . you might have to edit out some of the language. Er . . . yes, I will . . . um . . . happily do so. I hope you’ve got a seven-hour tape.

  The interview was over. It had taken barely 15 minutes that had felt like five. I replayed it in my head and glugged down another cup of water. Nothing dreadful, all the main points covered. Lord only knew whether my guestimate of the summit’s area being equivalent to half a cricket pitch was correct. Peter and the team seemed happy though and while Cheryl took a few photos for the webpage, we chatted about my coming back in after the climb.

  With Jake leading us back to the foyer, Lee and I discussed when I should come in to pick up the recording equipment and how much material she wanted me to provide. My main concern was that the device should be as small and easy to use as possible, but I was so thrilled to have been asked that I knew that, even if I were trailing wires, I’d make that audio-diary.

  ‘I don’t want you doing anything to put yourself in danger, Red,’ Lee insisted, reading my mind. ‘We want you back in one piece. If needs be we’ll get you back in to do another interview, okay?’

  ‘I promise. My wife would be a bit miffed too if I came back in a box.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ Lee’s Australian accent, always so mellow on the Radio had acquired an edge that brooked no frivolity.

  ‘I won’t take any silly risks, I promise. And, Lee – thank you!’

  The interview was broadcast the next evening. Kate, Laura, Meg and I crowded round the radio and I tried not to squirm too much at the sound of my own voice. Only lightly edited it took up over half the show! Peter’s small addition closed the piece:

  Well let’s hope we can get a seven-hour slot for it. And we’ll be following Red Szell’s adventure later in the summer and there’s more details about his climb on our website.’

  Within minutes, texts, calls and emails began pouring in. Among the congratulations and flattering comments were a couple of suggestions that I look at my JustGiving page.

  There had been a flurry of donations from people who had heard the piece on the radio. Many were blind themselves or former-climbers, or both, wanted to wish me luck and had found my details on the In Touch website. Of all the donations I was to receive perhaps theirs meant the most to me. They felt like an endorsement by people I represented – saying ‘good on you, go for it!’

  Progress on the visual media front was more mixed, though started brilliantly.

  Alex’s girlfriend, Pia Agullar Saffirio, had worked long and hard, compiling the clips taken at Applecross and Diabaig and interspersing them with information about the challenge I had set myself. The result was a two-and-a-half minute promotional video that was so good that when she presented it at the Creative Scotland Student Media Festival she won the Best TV Pitch category.

  She posted it on YouTube and sent me the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc1xkPzoZ-w&feature=youtu.be saying that she hoped it might prove helpful for publicity and fundraising and thanking me for inspiring her in her project! Her film provided a compelling insight into the challenges of climbing blind and proved a hit as soon as it was posted on the Facebook and JustGiving pages.

  Unfortunately however the TV production companies didn’t bite and Martin’s email a few days later was downbeat.

  At present it seems unlikely that there will be a professional film team on the climb . . . the BBC’s production teams haven’t expressed any definite interest in actually doing a film. As time is getting quite short I regard it unlikely that anything will happen. We can, of course, all take film on our cameras and put together a good amateur video of the climb in June.

  Hope you are keeping in good training.

  It was disappointing but everything else was so overwhelmingly positive that I shrugged my permanently aching shoulders and moved on. I was going to get an audio record of the event, which was more my line, and besides I wasn’t sure I wanted some TV crew telling me I had to climb that bit again because the light was wrong or whatever!

  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. There was a knock at the back door and John senior appeared.

  ‘Where you off ta t’day lads?’

  ‘The Roaches,’ I replied. ‘We thought we’d give the Sloth a go.’

  John cast a suspicious eye towards the heavens and sucked his teeth. ‘Ah don’t like look of t’em clouds over there.’