UKC

Niall Grimes writes about his early days of climbing in Donegal...

When I was little, I hardly knew what the world was, nor my place in it. On the dinner table there was a salt and pepper set, two little cubes of glass with silver tops, and they both sat inside a round plastic holder with the world printed on the outside. On the top was a gold-painted eagle and you used the eagle to lift the top half off and get at the salt and pepper. I would sit at the dinner table and use the eagle to spin the globe and look at the different shapes painted on: Africa, Greenland, Black Sea, Sicily, Antarctica. I liked the names but they really meant nothing to me because all I knew was Violet Street and Chapel Road, the Convent Field and the Triangle.

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Brilliant. Don´t think I´ve ever read a better piece about starting climbing; every sentence resonated. Thanks Niall!

Beautifully written. Thanks.

Cheers Niall - a delightful read on my birthday. Oh, to be young again! 

This is great Grimer. I was wondering just this week if you had written anything recently.

Si.

Lovely read! So emotive, when you bringing out your book? 😎👍

Loved this one Niall

I love the idea of a climb that 'disappears' (in the sense that the fact that someone climbed a bit of rock is not discernible by others); I can see how the disappearing of a FA could actually be the ultimate desideratum for a first ascensionist, rather than an unwanted accident.

An unreal bit of writing Niall. I'd like to go and see some of those rocks and routes one day before they sink back into the turf.

He never plugs it but if you want to support Niall's creative output here is his Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jamcrackpodcast/membership 

He never really posts on there but it goes towards making the podcast and articles like this happen so in my mind it's worth it.

Wonderful writing! This really resonates with me:

"It wasn't an easy day out. It wasn't a comfortable day out. It certainly wasn't a fun day out, but as we drove home that day, aged sixteen, I felt I had just had the most amazing day of my life so far."

Oh hi all, glad you enjoyes

Niall

A resonant read, and poignant in the end.

"I think often about the climbs we did, how much we put into them and how much they meant to us. These obscure routes in obscure places were everything to us. We dreamed of them all week and did all we could to have the freedom to get there and the skills to succeed when we did. But times pass. I have left there ..."

This resonated for me, and seems to speak about dealing with life changes in general, as much as it does about the author's personal circumstances.

I have climbed for a very long time. When younger, I was definitely obsessed by the activity, and it has provided me with powerful experiences and memories. But, after the recent death of my wife, I have questioned everything that I have ever done, and, thinking about it, the importance I once placed on climbing now seems utterly juvenile.

That is not to diminish the value of the activity to any individual. But times do pass; things do change; and what might seem crucially important to somebody at some particular time might be completely banal to everybody else.