Scottish Schools Expedition Society - Summer 1969 - Climbing and Hillwalking all the 4000' peaks in Scotland - Pools of Dee in the Lairig Ghru. Gavin Clarke - DG - Charley Jeffrey - John McGaw. Where are you John? - The rest of use are still in touch and active in the mountains.
Late September 1971. George and I awaiting the results of our resit exams in the magnificence of the CIC Hut in the days before any commitment to anything except rock climbing. DG atop the first pitch of Centurion, the the magnificent second pitch up the corner above awaiting George's attentions. All of this series on Centurion are scanned colour negatives - and it will have been the cheapest film at the time. The colour caste is horrible, but the ability of Photoshop to overcome the poor contrast and flat illumination of the original is beyond any expectation- which is why I have not attempted this retrieval of old film stock before.
George Lynn Gibson leads the great second pitch of Centurion.
DG leads the third pitch on Centurion in the days before he could grow a beard! Yes that is a peg hammer! My Gran had recently died and the tiny bit of money, all she had in the world was shared between myself and my sister. I bought an Exacta RTL1000 camera with its complex and bulky removeable TTL metering. George and I shared this on the route. This route was at the very start of my love of the photo image.
DG commencing the lead of the crux pitch out of the tiers of overhangs . The rack was as much as a student could afford, and the harness was 32 feet of doubled tubular tape. This was a home made harness before the days of harnesses! I could not yet afford the new Whillans product. The wide step left and up and over the major overhang halted me for about 40 minutes - my heels were poised about 20' feet out from the base of the crag and about 600' above it - a confidence issue rather than a matter of ability. There were occasional snow flurries coming down the Carn Dearg crag, and my hands were frozen but my brain was not.
1976 - Cath (here already into our third year together - its now nearly 35) and our good friend DD in the burn at the camping spot at the corner of Glen Rosa - Arran. The temperatures were over 30 deg C everyday for a week. This was June 1976 and I was avoiding my graduation ceremony at Edinburgh University in common with many of my year as a protest at the lack lustre quality of the leadership and teaching in so many of the depts. The mountain in profile is Cir Mhor - the scene of lots of visits to climb by many routes its near perfect big crystal pink granite. George and I climbed more than 2 dozen routes up there, returning with one of his girlfirends in 1980 - a non climber - to rope her up Souwester Slab - surely one of the finest introductions to rock climbing one could ever have.
Great mullet DD ! Hippy chick centre parting Cath! Visit Scotland! - private swimming pool round every corner! Nae crowds! In comparison the Funchal Lido was truly 'Hell on Earth'!
Two figures going 'au cheval' at the bottom of the unroped descent off the A Cir ridge to the Bealach. Easy moves but very intimidating to make the first few moves down off the ridge.
DG in his first forey back into rock climbing in 1975 after 10 months in plaster following the 33m lead fall on Creag Dubh Newtonmore. This is the top of Hammer on the Trilleachan Slabs of Glen Etive. At this moment in time I was still registered as a disabled driver to get the parking concession in central Edinburgh. Sheila Kirkwood lead the route. The disabled driver bit was recorded in the SMC Lagan Garbh hut book - as I was reminded recently.
Talk about being a child of your time! Tie dye tee shirt, flared loon pants, Rory Gallacher side burns, and already my hair is falling out. Top of Hammer. My ankle was sore for a week after this - and possibly this is when I snapped the stainless steel wiring that had sutured my achilles tendon back together again. Only 35 years later has the promised arthritis in the badly damaged sub talar joint finally struck home. Hammer is a great route but my favourite at the Slabs was the Long Reach - all the harder for me not having a long reach!
1977 - Upper Val D'Arpette descending from the Fenetre de Chamoix, destination that night - the Grand Combin in the distance
Between L'Eveque and Col l'Eveque
Michelle of the long long legs; Mitre and Point L'Eveque in behind her left shoulder - these climbed plus FN Petit Collon in dangerous conditions, with George a few years later
The col at last! Dent d'Herens begins to show itself after hours of continual well paced skinning.
The Col de Valpelline. A 360 degree pan from 9 negs welded with difficulty in PS 6. Taken on my first alpine style ski traverse of the 'Classic Haute Route'- Chamonix- Zermatt-Saas Fee using the glaciers and cols only. The second, also on alpine skis took in many of the peaks, the third was a super fast traverse on nordic skiis - very unusual for its time in 1979. On the latter we travelled very lightweight, took food in the huts, slept outside, traversed long distances on the glaciers under star light from 2am onwards, roped in near perfect harmony. Chamonix - Zermatt in 2.5 days. Got the insight into the style from memorably staying for a month as a guest of the adjutant of the Ecole Militaire de Haute Montagne. I'll never forget that kindness. One of the best months of my life. I learned so much and was only arrested in Chamonix once. So spoke the duty Gendarmerie officer - " Oh you're at the 'Cham' - well thats all right then - now get lost"! Or words to that effect.
Near the Tete Blanche looking up towards the Col de Valpelline - good bit of skinning exercise! Perfect day. David Blackall in the foreground
1977. Perfect crisp cold snow with an easily broken crust. Close to the Dent d'Herens, with Mt Cervin (Matterhorn) and Col de Leone in the background. George and I had an august storm bivvy (small epic) on the descent from the Matterhorn some 13 years later. An occasion when on the summit I did not zip up the top pocket of my rucksack and out of the corner of my eye, witnessed my OM2 with 24mm lens and polariser disappear back down the north face route where no doubt it still remains.
The Matterhorn in all its west facing splendour, from high on the shoulder of Dent d'Herens, begining 21kms of continual skiing terminating for the day taking the skiis off in the courtyard of one of the bars (inevitable n'est pa?) high above Zermatt. Fantastic day!
Third pitch Thor - Shelterstone Crag - I spent more than an hour nervously on the hanging belay - vertically driven nested pegs! - while George lead out this technical pitch - I worked out how it could be freed by someone with a longer reach than I who could links moves on the steep slab to the occasional layback finger holds on the left diedre. The leader would have wanted a much more sound belay that the one that I had - and I couldn't see how to do that.
George leading out the - then - aid pitch on Thor at the Shelterstone Crag - Cairngorms - Scotland. The flake to his immediate left - which he has just stepped over - prised itself away from the face when it was loaded with protection - another scary moment
Not The Shelterstone - but A Shelterstone - under the Shelterstone Crag - Cairngorms - Scotland. George had many eccentrities - bringing a pot of lemon curd on climbing weekends was one. Stacking pots over a paraffin primus to cook haggis neeps and tatties from first principles was another, and returning a loaned tent after a winter weekend when the macaroni and cheese had been spilled and not totally cleaned - and not telling you - was a singularly regretable one. I found out at Creag Meghaidh a month later when pitching the fetid thing at 2am in a blizzard.
DG above Coire nan Lochain - after a few routes in Coire na Sneachtda - using the Cassin north face ice hammer that Dave Smith sold to me. He had heated the metal bent down the pick angle. But he had not stress annealed it. So tension on that metalworking 'undid' its curve kind of dramatically that weekend - Northern Cairngorms 1972. You out there Smithy? - you owe me a tener plus interest - for dud goods!
1983 - DG taken on his OM2 at Carson (Carson the Cannibal's village) - Southern Colorado mountains - nordic ski touring with Scott a lovely guy much troubled by his experiences in Vietnam
1983 - the first day of the first trek or climbing trip I ever did in Nepal. Beyond Dumre at Tortorre at the start of the Annapurna Circuit. Dawn lights up a nicely paved main street with a kid running through. At the Hotel Lila on another occasion I was to be bitten over 150 times in one night by dog fleas - requiring in future the packing of flea powder as the first thing on my packing list! The bites itched furiously for a month before subsiding. I refused to pay for my accommodation thereby nearly starting an international incident.
Between Bhulbhule and Tal in the Marshiyangdi Gorge, Nepal. The cliff is home to nests of wild bees - these are seen under the main overhang. Eric Valli and Diane Summers made their name with the publication of 'The Honey Hunters of Nepal' photographed further down the valley. Eric Valli went on to film and direct that wonderful little film 'L'enfance d'un Chef' - or in English known as 'Himalaya' - which I first saw appropriately in a fleapit in Kathmandu!
Two tiny figures with long shadows take off a layer of clothes as the early morning sun catches the rocky edge of Mitre l'Eveque as it plunges into glacial shade
A complex icy ridge with lots of dangers for the unwary beckons us towards Dent d'Herens
From the Pointe l'Eveque looking back over Pigne d'Arolla with footmarks visible across the glacier under Petit Mont Collon (off left of picture) and from Cabine Vignettes (off right of picture) to the summit of Pigne d'Arolla. Two great ski descents of this mountain in the preceeding years culminating with digging a French Guide out of a windslab avalanche he himself had caused on the convex glacial bulge between the two rock buttresses in the middle part of the picture. He survived but was lucky we were on hand to locate and dig him out. He had no peeps or trailing avalanche cord.
I look at images like this where my own footprints weave between the crevasses and over the summer snow bridges, and I remember how careful I should be and how fragile human life is up here in the icy altitudes - to the rear - shadow of the FN Petit Mont Collon climbed the day before
Its a climbing thing. Its there - you just have to try it. Here is a big bridge and four shadowy figures in the first light of dawn. There is a banner up there that could be advertising the bridge for sale - for the Edinburgh Students Charities Appeal. The four could all now be quite eminent in their fields - but one of them is no longer with us - sadly lost in descent of Ben Nevis in winter after a late ascent of Orion Face Direct. The remainder should remain anonymous. I do remember the wind being fierce on the northern symmetrical peak, the night pitch black, the towers shaking,and the ships passing underneath looked tiny. And there was the car chase half way across Fife losing the Bridge Police. Oh memories! Or am I imagining it all in my dribbling senility? The many ascents and traverses of the nearby railway bridge were - in any case - much more fun.
Aonach Mor summit - late November 1975 - preparing for an open bivouac above the cloud sea - Cath - George - Scraggy Maggie
an open bivouac in november 1975 on Aonach Beag - Scotland - sun setting over Morven, Ardgour and the Atlantic seaboard
First image I ever took of the girl who has been with me ever since - in her Gran's old fur coat - Inverleith Pond in Stockbrige - Edinburgh - 1975
Cath - Raeburn Place - 1975 - retrieved from a very dark 35mm transparency
Cath - one a series of unintentional double exposures which mixed portraits with landscape - I like this at the time (1976) though have never made deliberate double exposures since
Cath - unintentional double exposure 1976 - when Indian cheese cloth dresses were the latest ethnic fashion
Cath - unintentional double exposure - 1976
Cath in the Coon's kitchen - St Bernards Row - Edinburgh 1976
All hail mighty Photoshop! The transparency was so under exposed that the entire portrait was a silhouette. I could not afford a flash gun and a girlfriend at the same time! Taken in 1974 in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens Orchid House. Today is the first time I have ever seen the full image detail. One of the first photos I ever took of Catherine Janet. I am so glad I never binned it. Lots of work in levels, then saturation, then skin tones and contrast. Astonishing what can be retrieved.
Paris or Copenhagen? 1978. Probably Paris as the parasol appears to advertise 'Ricard'. Wearing the engagement necklace, handmade made by a goldsmith in Germany - the Celtic spiral signifying everlasting love and renewal.
A wedding somewhere, - Rachel & Marc ? - early 1980s.
The Lilac Princess
Hampton on the Hill. Wawickshire. I was still in the army. This must be early 1980, as Roc the dalmation puppy - here a few months old - was Cath's wedding present to me.
The hulls of yachts reflected in the harbour at Copenhagen. OM2 with 550mm mirror lens - Sakurachrome transparency film. Manual focus, tripod, on nearby reflective water with ripple - utterly impossible!
Copenhagen 1978. The Gefion Fountain is on the harbour front in Copenhagen, Denmark. It features a large-scale group of animal figures being driven by the legendary Norse goddess, Gefjun.
Copenhagen harbour 1978
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen. 1978. OM2 held high on B setting as we hurtled round the rollercoaster at night
Paris - Champs Elysees - OM2 held open on B setting while we were driven down the boulevard at Parisien speeds - seemed suicidal at the time.
Versailles 1978
Louvre 1978
Edinburgh 1974 - Inverleith Gardens sunset
Inverleith Park sunset. Edinburgh. 1974.
Co-op building sunset! Edinburgh - St Bernards Row - 1975
Edinburgh - Gyle - 1974 - sunset
Edinburgh - Gyle - 1974 sunset
Forth Road and Rail Bridges - sunset colours - thought to be artificially aided by the petrochemical smog that issues from the Grangemouth Petroleum Refinery
Isle of Whithorn harbour - dawn
Its 'slim jim' DD! I used to get heavily teased about my conversations about "out of focus donuts" when using the short depth of field creatively, of the 550 mm MTO mirror lens. Taken at Cramond, Edinburgh. About 1977. Ye'd nae get intae they breeks the noo ma man!
An early attempt direct into the setting sun with the 550mm mirror lens. 1977. Superb Russian lens, very well engineered, but weighed about 3Kg, - probably made from a recycled T34 tank gun barrel!
Cath with Roc - her wedding present to me - 1980 - only a few months old and full of mischief. He grew to be a huge strong and gentle dog. Climbed mountains with me, ran marathons, tormented cats up trees, protected our children. Loathed water. A natural hunting dog. What better present ?- He was with us every day for 14 splendid years.
Muddy feet have a certain - "je ne sais quou" - attraction! Cardoness Beach 1976. Our kids were to have many happy holidays with total safe freedom here - 20 years later. This 3.5 years before we were married.
Cardoness Beach - Cath and Roc our Dalmation - a curious effect with ND filter, and polariser at an angle to the sun that one would normaly expect it to have little effect. The film was GAF 400 ASA which I used to deliberately create grain - it was interesting in bright light and truly awful in poor light. The green clouds are probably reciprocity failure in the processing. Who knows? Who cares??
The canal locks at Hampton on the Hill Warwickshire on a winter's morning
An extreme light situation - sun setting reflected in the canal water with close by winter flowers silhouetted - extremes of light, depth of field, 24 mm F1.4 wide angle allowing hand held to 30th. (All time favourite prime lens). This is the first time I have seen the range of the image thanks to photoshop - original on Ektachrome. I am sure I can retrieve yet more from this image. And yes it would have been better taken on tripod and a 4 stop grad filter - I know! - but at the time I would have been out running with the camera in a bum bag!
George, best man at our wedding and I at his, with Cath. My climbing and mountaineering partner for 20 years. Very much missed by us both.
George and the dreadful SKS, having been towed from the M6 motorway, now needing a new short engine. The threat of new spots on Roc the dalmation, who did actually love George, though it was hard to fathom why at times.
After Paris, and between Geneve and Verbier, before Chamonix - on our 1980 honeymoon. My second Matra on snow tyres, BFG plates, and 4 sets of ski mountaineering and cross country skiis.
Ski de Randonnee in the Jura - Jan 1980
Just married - Jan 1980 - Pension Chardonnet - Argentiere - France
Previous Image converted to B/W and cropped.
Cath in the Pension Chardonnet
Cath, a beer and the French news.
Aiguille Chardonnet from the very traditional and pleasant, homely Pension Chardonnet in Argentiere. Must go back some day soon.
Wild uncontrolled photo - taken on motordrive trying to catch Cath in the lens flare - reciprocity failure gone mad!
DG having a ball. 1980 on our honeymoon - Grand Montets - Argentiere - France. Short planting, swinging the hips, pushing the heels, getting deep in the knees - rhythm like a salmon going upstream.
Cath on Grand Montets - from another motor drive OM2 sequence
Night falls on the Aiguille des Drus - and the temperature falls. Scene of great attempt to do the first winter ascent of the Drus Couloir by the Edinburgh Squirrels a few years before. All the main difficulties were climbed but the weather broke before completion of the route.
1980 - DG at Grand Montets with the Col de Chardonnet in the background - over which I had been 3 times in 3 years - twice on alpine skiis and once on nordic - to complete the high traverse from Chamonix to Zermatt and Saas Fee - first time quick and direct, second time with all the peaks, then very fast on nordic skiis. Wearing proudly my Ecole de Haute Montagne (Militaire) hat and badge. Great for free riding the Chamonix valley telepheriques and getting out of gaol!
Cath in control in the deep powder above Courcheval
Above Courcheval - lots of deep snow skiing - and off piste gullies and couloirs
Val Thorens - in the steep and deep - and more snow is a coming
Cath and David - Val Thorens 1985
The mighty Matterhorn- or from this side of the Alpes - Mt Cervino - with the Cresta del Leone on the left of the summit and the Hornli Ridge on the right edge, the ridge coming down towards the camera is the Furggen. Been up the Hornli and most of the North Face. The Matterhorn is one of the many 4000 metres summits surrounding the Mattertal valley, with the Breithorn, Zwillinge, Liskamm and Monte Rosa. Been to the tops of all of these on ski.
Cervinia. Cold weather blowing up - skiing that day on nordic skiis, which was unusual for 1985. This is the afternoon when the chief instructor whizzed up to me on his very expensive Kneissls and - in this increasingly horrible weather - insisted we swap skis and boots to see if he could still do telemark short links. He could - only just - his first for 25 years. I resisted the temptation to scorch off down hill on his state of the art expensive skiis and boots, leaving him with my heavily used nordic equipment! I was very very tempted!
Cervinia - Cath being very controlled on the steep bits as the wind turns to gale force.
The flowers of the Brittany Coast - Cycle holiday from Roscoff - round the the west coast to Brest - over the foot ferry to Crozon/ Morgat/ Camaret sur Mer - Chateaulin - Brasparts - Morlaix - St Pol de Leone - and back to Roscoff
Cath at Chateaulin with marigolds everywhere
Beer and Camenbert - what better fuel? June the campsites are open but empty. So no schoolkids and no fees to pay. Its a good deal! At Playben we ate crepes, and found that Johnny Cunningham the great and much lamented Scots contemporary fiddler, whom we knew from Edinburgh days in the St Vincents Bar, was touring in Brittany, but always it seemed one day ahead of us. He wasn't cycling!
Brasparts may well be 4.6 km. But after all this cycling my parts are already brass. What state the Tour de France riders must get into does not bear thinking about.
I don't care what you say - my delicate Nordic skin is not coming out of my little bit of shade into this burning French sun.
The cliffs and rocks , strewn with wrecks , at Les Tas des Pois at Pointe de Menhir
Gathering shellfish on an incoming tide. Hard work. At what point does tradition become too hard requiring change that almost inevitably requires central subsidy? Without - there is population drift to the cities. the starvation of entrepreneurial skills and investment, and collapse of housing prices. Second and retirement home owners move in.
At Carentec, having cycled down the proudly named Ave des Francais Libres - we found the harvesting of kelp on an industrial scale. In Scotland this traditional folk industry is entirely dead.
The buoys of Morlaix
1978. Cath joined me in Germany - and we took a months leave in Norway. To explore, climb, and enjoy a country in so many ways like Scotland - but independent! Drove through Denmark to catch the ferry to Kristiansand - Bygland Fiord - Hardangervidda - Bergen - Sognefiord - Josteldalbreen - Jotenheimen - Hemsedal - Arundal - Kristiansand. One of the very best experiences.
Climbing kit check before attempting a new route on a big granite wall the next day
Cath silhouetted in portrait against the reflected fiord - bright with sun - mirror lens to create the out of focus rings plus a yellow filter on transparency film
Sognefiord - Camping under apple trees laden with delicious fruit. Matra Bagheera No 1
Nigardsbreen - a southern glacial snout of the great Josteldalbreen
DG with new Norwegian ventile wind jacket and locally kniited hat - on top of a loose rocky peak in the Jotenheimen - miserable wet snowy weather in early September
After the only bad weather day in the whole month - recourse to alcohol - by ration - the bottle had to last the whole month
Cath - Raeburn Place - Edinburgh a B/W finished with skin tones rather than transferred into sepia
Cath - Raeburn Place - Edinburgh
1978 - Drink Belhaven Beer, eat Fondue, drink lots of Mosel Wines - and the rest takes care of itself !!! - The original negative is horrible - grainy - out of focus taken on delay. B/W - through levels and contrast, part despeckle, photo filters to put back in red and a little blue, back though levels and contrast. Enjoy your fondue! We did.
Well it was the 1970s ! Grainy negative through levels and contrast, photofilters for red and magenta, then into gradient map and back through saturation. Yes we could drink three bottles of wine with a fondue. Minden, Westfalia, BDR, when defending the West from the Soviet Tank Divisions.
Cath - Mantefeullestrasse - Minden - Westfalia - BDR
Cath looking over Lake Geneva , looking direct into the sun, with a cloud sea below us. Various filters after levels and contrast, to reverse, despeckle and enhance the grain. Original negative was taken with polariser and 6 point cross screen filter - which often produces flares that have destructive interference as well as colour diffraction
Cath on Stac Pollaidh with Edracillis Bay - Tannara Mor and Eilean a Chleirich ( Priest island) of the Summer Isles beyond. Read about Frank Fraser Darling and his wife's studies of the wildlife on Eilean a Chleirich in "The Island Years"
Cath and Roc ( 8 month old puppy) on Beinn Mhor na Coigich - the dog's first ever day on the hill - Garbh Coireachan - Beinn Mhor na Coigich - Squrr na Fhidhleir - Beinn na Caorach - Cairn Conmheall. So exhausted by the afternoon - nearly had to carry him home - but already too big for that. He grew into a dog that could cover 100 miles a day when used to drive deer out of the highland forests.
George - Tower Ridge - Ben Nevis
DG in Tower Gap looking vertically down Glovers Chimney on the left of the image This the scene, on another day, of a pleasant winter ascent with Dr John Spencer - Now a Prof!! Who could ever have thought it!
George wading the River Nevis
George belayed in Gardyloo Gully - Ben Nevis
DG emerging through the ice cave pitch on Gardyloo Gully - Ben Nevis
Cath when I first met her, and before I learned to focus a camera
My crayon 1974 sketch on the Coon's flat door. Good grief!!!!
An anonymous cartoon of DG, possibly inferring I needed a ladder to climb my mountains. Well only after an all-nighter in the back bar at the Kingshouse!
Another anonymous cartoon of DG from Edinburgh Squirrels days.
A 1979 wedding day message from Francois et Dominique, hinting that our kids might be numerous, and have little option in their early climbing careers. 'Premier de Cordee' was Caths first cover to cover French book. The Bagheera was my first little Matra sports car - with only 3 seats, and one was for me and one was for the dog!
Fraser Davidson observes his father - DD, and DG (fond of the barley, hops, and the rye - sleeping it off what was probably a Burns Supper in the dining room at 84 Fortuneswell in 1995. The archway to the lounge is a dead giveaway for the location. Mercifully, not a camera in sight. Just a talented cartoonist. Observational skills that are taking him far.
DG and DD observed in 1995 by Fraser Davidson.
Wee guy with short thick skier's legs runs marathon at Stoke on Trent or was this Bristol??? Never got under 3 hours- but got within 4 and 6 minutes of that. "Ba humbug"
Wee fella with short thick legs and now got a 'go faster' beard - runs the marathon. Torbay was tough- lots of significant up and downs around Newton Abbott. Nice finish along the seafront. 3 hrs 20 mins as I remember on 70 miles a week training. Knakkered for a month after wards.
