by Red Szell
‘Paging Mr Pitt, paging Mr Pitt – the camera needs to love you!’ crowed Matthew arriving to lead me to the viewing platform at the stern.
In front of us the shoreline of Hoy glowed as red as coals in the slowly sinking sun, vast and dramatic. Once Matthew had pointed my head in the right direction and I’d followed the line of his arm I saw the Old Man rising proud and erect – a sentinel before his cliffs. Keith shot minute after minute of me in atmospheric contemplation of the scene, but it hardly felt staged. I could have gazed at it for hours.
Martin remarked it was the calmest crossing he’d had in the two dozen or so he’d made and boded well for the weather ahead. I was already convinced – I’d felt the lure of the rocks ahead of me, it was going to be a great climb.
There’d been a fair bit of banter during the crossing; most of it about Matthew and Andres being my entourage and me the Brad Pitt star-figure; and the mood had seemed to lighten. Keith was sensitive to the fact that the three of us had come this far as a team and took the time to explain the need to keep what might only be a 15-minute feature, simple. Too many faces would crowd the picture, the focus had to be on me and my quest.
At Stromness it was a minute’s drive to the Ferry Inn where Matthew helped me up to my room and we were finally able to discuss things alone.
He was seriously pissed off, fulminating about Martin all-but ignoring him and Andres at Latheronwheel. ‘I can completely understand his reasons for not wanting us all on the Old Man at the same time, though I still think that’s more about what suits him best. But I thought that at least today we’d all get to enjoy some time climbing together. Instead he couldn’t get rid of us quick enough.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that you were going to be pushed aside all afternoon. I thought Keith only wanted to get a few shots.’
‘You know what Red? This is about getting you to the top of the Old Man, that’s Martin’s job and he’s doing it. Of course the rest is secondary. But his attitude sucks.’
I agreed that Martin seemed to be making it perfectly clear that he viewed Matthew and Andres as excess baggage but wondered whether he was wrong-footed by the presence of the camera. After all, though a little taciturn at times, he had been far more accommodating at Easter.
Matthew laughed grimly, ‘This is great PR for Martin Moran. He’s going to be the man who led the Blind Man of Hoy on TV. The fewer of us in the picture the more screen time he receives.’
‘I’m sorry about all this, Matthew. I had no idea it was going to turn out this way,’ I said, feeling somehow responsible.
‘The only thing that matters here is achieving the right outcome for you. Andres and I will be happy enough knowing that we got you most of the way to the top of the Old Man.’
I muttered something about preferring to have one of them climbing next to me than Martin which Matthew picked up on straightaway and I was soon explaining about the mix-up on the cliff.
‘So you’re more comfortable with Nick guiding?’ Matthew cut straight to the chase as usual. I nodded. ‘Well, tell Martin then! This is about optimising conditions for you, not him. His feelings don’t matter here.’ Suddenly Matthew’s gripes had become secondary.
I said I would think it over and we hurried downstairs to join the others in the bar where Martin and Keith outlined the plan for the morrow. The weather forecast was good so we’d catch the first ferry across to Hoy, drop our gear at the hostel and walk straight over to the Old Man. There, on the promontory, Keith proposed using the day to shoot an interview with me.
‘It’ll just be asking you a few questions about what drew you to climbing in the first place; why The Old Man of Hoy; how you came to choose Martin to lead you up and the impact that losing your sight has had,’ he assured me.
‘That will give Nick and me the opportunity to take Matt and Andres up the Old Man and Keith can get some pictures of them from the cliffs,’ Martin added his stamp of approval to the plan. ‘Then we can take you up, Red, the following day if the weather holds, or if not Friday looks like the better day with no rain forecast until the evening.’
I felt a wave of disappointment. It had been bad enough to be told that the three of us weren’t going to climb together but somehow I’d always assumed I was going to be first up. The idea of talking to a TV camera about myself while my two climbing companions were behind me, making the ascent I’d dreamed of for thirty years, was galling. Still at least it would give them a day off from what was rapidly turning into The Red Szell Show and it meant I could order another beer without compunction.
Everyone loosened up a bit with a couple of drinks and settled down to a jovial dinner during which Keith and Nick took centre stage and told climbing stories. We rounded things off with a dram of whisky and got a relatively early night.
18
Day 2, All Talk, No Action
‘The Old Man sticks straight up out of the Atlantic like the admonishing finger of God’
– Al Alvarez, Feeding the Rat
Light framed the Velux blind and I was up, scrubbed, dressed and packed before I thought to check the time and found it was only four o’clock. I went back to bed, fully clothed, alternately dozing and reflecting on the daylight hours this far north.
Martin had slept in the minibus, having given up his bed to Keith – there being no more room at the inn for last-minute additions. I’d clearly woken him slinging my rucksack into the boot at 7.00 am on the dot but, gazing across the car park to Scapa Flow, he was happy enough to chat about the German fleet scuttled there at the end of World War One.
It was a beautiful summer morning, bright and with a briskness that made it a pleasure to be up so early. The previous day’s anxieties had no place here. Matthew and Andres appeared happier too; clearly buzzing at the prospect of the climb that lay ahead on what looked to be the perfect day for it. They tucked into bacon and eggs with gusto then stood hungrily on the ferry deck as we chugged closer and closer to the Isle of Hoy.
The warden of the hostel lived by a cluster of bothies, one of which Nick and Amy had rented with friends for New Year’s Eve some years before. Their revels had acquired primitive authenticity when they had been plunged into darkness by a power-cut. It looked an inhospitable enough place on Midsummer’s Day.
Soon enough though we were rounding the bend into Rackwick Bay and pulling up by a smart stone-built bungalow in front of which the famous sign was propped. Battered, peeling and long detached from its post it still spelt out its stark warning:
OLD MAN OF HOY
CLIMBERS ARE HEREBY WARNED
THAT THERE IS NEITHER
SUITABLE RESCUE EQUIPMENT
NOR EXPERIENCED ROCK
CLIMBERS IN THE VICINITY
CLIMBERS THEREFORE PROCEED
AT THEIR OWN RISK
Martin was keen to get cracking within the hour so I busied myself making sandwiches while the others got their kit together. Keith unloaded boxes and boxes of camera equipment and it soon became clear that everybody was expected to act as Sherpas. I alone was to carry just my own bag, partly so that I could concentrate on making it along the cliff-top path in one piece, partly for on-film continuity.
I pulled a face at this special treatment but, listening to the others grunting and groaning under the additional weight, was secretly glad to be conserving my energy.
The footpath led along spectacularly beautiful coastline so grand in scale and vibrant in its blues, green, white and ochre red sandstone that even my damaged eyes could not fail to take in its magnificence. All around us seabirds wheeled and squawked. Curlews, guillemots, skuas, kittiwakes, puffins and the dreaded fulmars – winged traffic in an avian city, honking and shouting at each other. Occasionally, like the hooter on a Model T Ford, the unmistakeable throaty sound of a corncrake echoed over the moorland, announcing that it wasn’t extinct yet.
Though recently rebuilt and about as even and well made as these things get, the path was hard going for me. To be in keepin
g with its rugged surroundings it was constructed from scree laid in a trench about eight inches deep and had narrow drainage channels cut across it at irregular intervals to twist misplaced ankles. Larger chunks of rock littered the way and its verges just to add extra interest. I’ve had more difficult walks to a climb but this was still two miles of hard labour and concentration and I was glad I was borrowing Martin’s hiking boots again.
After about a mile the path began to descend. ‘You should be able to see the top of the Old Man from here,’ announced Nick, whose rucksack I was holding onto for guidance. I peered along his arm and made out a rather disappointing block toppling sideways into the horizon.
Only as we walked out along the promontory did the Old Man truly begin to loom. One glance over the edge of the cliff was enough to give anyone pause for thought – it was a dizzyingly long way down.
Still, it looked very climbable and I was horribly jealous as I waved Matthew and Andres goodbye and listened to them jangling away down the precipitous ‘path’ to the foot of the cliff. Keith suggested I eat something and have a cup of tea while he set up his various cameras, so I found a solidly planted boulder to perch on and took his advice.
Over the next 40 minutes Keith gave me regular updates on the progress the others were making on their long descent and outlined the interview process. I was to remember that this was a voluntary exercise and I could choose not to discuss any aspect I felt uncomfortable with or ask him to stop filming at any point. This was reassuring, not because I have deep dark secrets I wish to conceal but because being filmed was a new experience for me. In fact the major relief of having this escape option turned out to be that because the day was so bright it hurt my eyes to look too long at the camera and we had to stop for me to take refuge behind dark glasses. I refused to be filmed wearing them though as I have a pathological distrust of people who insist on being interviewed in sunglasses – it’s irrational I know but I think it makes them look shifty!
With Martin making rapid progress up to the first belay stance, Keith performed some final adjustments to the camera he had focussed on the Old Man then turned to face me. ‘Are you ready then, Red?’
‘As I’ll ever be I guess.’ The breeze had got up and sitting inactive on a headland I’d got chilly in spite of the sun so had put on my Mammut waterproof.
‘Mmm,’ Keith clearly didn’t approve. ‘Have you got anything a bit more colourful, black isn’t great for these kind of outdoor shots.
I rummaged around in my pack and pulled out the bright yellow down jacket I had, once again, borrowed from Cole.
‘Perfect!’ Keith was delighted. ‘Great colour!’
So much for Mammut sponsorship I thought. I’d make sure to wear their natty little rucksack on the climb.
Andres was following Martin up. Their shouted communication carried to us on the wind. I’d suspected the four of them would split into these pairs. Matthew and Martin were both just too alpha-male, too used to taking the lead to get on well. Andres was Alex’s age and Martin treated him as such. And Nick just went with the flow. The strange thing was, the most alpha of all of us, the one who quietly called the shots and you knew would walk out of the jungle after a plane crash, was Keith. But being a natural peacemaker he was content to keep a lower profile.
He got things rolling by asking me to talk about when I’d first started climbing then led into my diagnosis, the prognosis I had been given and what I had had to give up.
‘So what led you back to climbing again?’
‘As soon as I got back on a wall I felt that sense of freedom that climbing had always given me; even more so. I’m not prodding around with a white stick, I’m actually feeling with my hands and my feet and I’m concentrating completely and utterly on it. Funnily enough I just forget I can’t see for a bit.’
With Nick shouting down from the belay for Matthew to follow him up Keith asked me to describe some of the challenges I faced as a blind climber and I began to talk about how Matthew, Andres and I had worked to overcome the obstacles.
Keith stopped filming and said gently, ‘I’m afraid we haven’t really got time in the feature to introduce lots of other people. For the purposes of the programme Martin and Nick are the ones helping you.’
Too many characters clutter a story – I knew that from writing fiction but could only imagine how disappointed the others would feel at being airbrushed from the narrative. Keith read my thoughts. ‘I know they’ve helped get you here but ultimately this is your story, your challenge. It will have more impact if there are fewer faces around you.’
Martin was now edging across the traverse on the second pitch; a long drop and big pendulum swing if he fell; he’d have chosen Nick to belay him. At least I’d have the security of being on a double rope here. Any fall I took, would still be a drop and swing, but significantly less hair-raising.
‘So give me an assessment of Martin and Nick and why you’ve chosen to climb the Old Man with them.’
That threw me. I put my hand up and asked for a moment or two to think about the question. Keith obliged and I asked what exactly he meant.
‘Well, why climb with them? What kind of characters are they? How do they, and you, work together as a team?’
My mind flitted between Moy, Diabaig and Latheronwheel. The three of us worked well together, alone and in our designated places. I’d climb anything Martin thought I was capable of, so long as he led and Nick was nearby giving his calm directions and prepared to accept that I might not always follow them.
‘Well, Martin’s the expert. He must have climbed the Old Man more times than anyone else, so I know I’m in safe hands and he’ll get me back in one piece. And Nick’s so laid-back I’m surprised he doesn’t topple backwards off the rock face.’ It wasn’t the best answer I could have given but I hoped it would suffice.
‘So, are you nervous?’
‘I am a bit nervous about it but it’s a bit like going into a school exam if you’ve done all the revision then you can only do what you can do on the day. And it’s just a waste of energy to worry about what might or might not happen.’
I got the impression that Keith would have appreciated a more tense reply and wanted to press me further but at that point we were joined by a group of walkers from the mainland keen to watch the live show on the rock.
From this distance the climbers appeared like Lego men scaling a battered grandfather clock. We fielded questions about them and I realised that the walkers thought I was Keith’s assistant and that we were filming this ascent. It gave me a strange twinge of resentment that was both unworthy and revealing. Was I perhaps beginning to believe that this was The Red Szell Show and so guarding the limelight jealously? If so I’d better guard against coming over as a pillock on film.
Keith had a HUGE telephoto lens trained on The Coffin. An extremely competent climber himself, he was fully qualified to offer commentary on the technique displayed by others. A series of ‘hmnh’s, ‘ah’s and a final appreciative ‘well done!’ accompanied the regular clicks of the shutter as he caught Andres’ exit for posterity.
‘That was certainly a bold approach to it,’ he remarked to me, ‘he’s a strong climber.’
I agreed and added that he’d see very different methodology from Matthew. Within the hour my words were borne out.
‘He’s looking a bit tense in there’ Keith relayed, ‘would you like a look?’
I’d had a couple of gos at peering down the telephoto lens but the image I got, because it was so hugely magnified and close-up, was just a blur of pixillated colour across my narrow tunnel of vision – impossible to get a fix on. This time however the centre-point was dead-on a readily identifiable object – Matthew’s face – and it didn’t look happy.
I’d already registered the decrease in chatter wafting across the water towards us and the sight of Matthew’s stricken face made me recall something Cole had said a month or so before: ‘Red I have no doubt that on the day you will pull it out of t
he bag. Matthew might be dried pasta; hard until he gets into hot water.’
‘Come on Matthew, commit and go for it; you can do it’ I urged, leaving the camera to Keith to get some shots that Matthew would either treasure or want to delete.
‘He’s going for it . . . he’s out . . . go on . . . go on . . . yes, he’s jammed the crack . . . looking a bit wobbly but . . . no he’s okay. Well done!’
A huge relief settled over me. The two of them were practically home and dry now – they’d nailed the crux and could enjoy the climb.
With much of the tension and the walkers gone Keith resumed the interview.
‘So, Martin tells me you’ve said that preparing for this challenge has made you a happier, better person, less likely to dwell on your problems. Would you agree?’
‘For a long time I was scared I was going to eat myself up with worry and perhaps a bit of bitterness about my eyesight and I still periodically go and stick my head over the side of the deep well of despair and think “that’s a long way down, I’m glad I’m out of that.” But I don’t know; I think I’ve lived with losing my eyesight for so long that you realise that the only way to combat it is to come out fighting every day and set yourself new targets.’
‘Just how important is it for you to reach the top?’
‘It’s important that I do get to the top to show that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. I do think that for too long people have imagined how awful it would be to have a disability and for many of us the worst part is learning the news the rest is fighting back.’
‘What scares you most?’
‘What, about the climb or life in general?’ I retorted, on my guard for imaginary traps.
‘Either.’ Keith was un-phased.
I thought. Seconds ticked by. ‘Er, not much really.’ I supposed I was meant to say ‘failure’ or ‘falling out of the bottom of The Coffin and dangling 150 feet above the Atlantic’ but really apart from losing my family in some random tragedy there’s not much out there to give me sleepless nights. I did my best to explain this, hoping I didn’t sound cocky or glib, then asked Keith to stop the camera.