The Climbing Gene

I mentioned in my last that Dolomite Strongholds is illustrated by the author, with his photos, colour lithographs and pen drawings. As I browsed this beautifully-produced book, a delicate sheet of folded paper slid out, containing pen drawings (traced on top of original pencil sketches) on both sides. None of these were incorporated into the book, so they are beyond mere rare. I feel it’s my duty to reveal them here to the world, particularly as the Rev J. Sanger-Davies’ book is still esteemed in certain rock-climbing circles.

The passage quoted in my last post referred to a Telfer-wire. I’d never heard of it before, even though at Birmingham University I was a member of a secret unofficial group of climbers called The Telferers. It was secret because we used to climb high buildings under cover of darkness and intoxication, sometimes daubing graffiti thereon. It was this group (a couple of years before my time) which had painted BATS (Birmingham Amateur Telferers’ Society) on the belfry of the famous campus clocktower, known as Joe in honour of Joseph Chamberlain, the University’s founding philanthropist.*

No one had known why we were called Telferers, though legend had it we were named after Telfer’s meat pies. (By strange coincidence the Frisbee flying disc was named after a brand of pie whose empty tins were found by students to have aerodynamic properties.)

Sanger-Davies’ book may have helped inspire A. A. Milne, the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, in his pastiche of the cragsman’s memoir, Climbing Napes Needle. I read it aged 14 in The Phoenix Book of Wit and Humour. I wish I still had that book! It was a paperback, but I managed to bind it in hardcovers – my first attempt, using a bright red leather-cloth. Ah, the Internet, where wishing can so soon turn into getting!—I have now ordered a hardback copy of the original edition.

One of our Telferers’ expeditions was to Wastwater in the Lake District. We actually traversed some of the lower reaches of Napes Needle, but weren’t proper rock-climbers. One day we sauntered up Sca Fell, the easy way. On the summit, I smoked a triumphant cigarette (emulating my pipe-smoking Victorian forebears) to the disgust of a more professional group armed with pitons, crampons, carabiners, ropes, and proper boots. They were planning to abseil down the sheer face, having just climbed it. We bummed a ride from them and abseiled down on their ropes. If I’d had a hand free, I’d have smoked another cigarette on the descent, just to show them the casual superiority of the amateur.

* on 26th November 2018 I received a message from David Wightman, via this site’s contact form:

I was at Birmingham University with Bill Cheverst in 1960 and a founder member of The Telferers. The name was based on “Telfers Meat Pies” which Bill and I liked. “BATS” painted on Old Joe had nothing to do the Telfering Activities but was just another name for the table tennis Bill & I used to play on the top floor of Mason College Arts Building where we first began our indoor climbing in 1959
DW

Bill Cheverst is mentioned in two posts on this site.