The art of social climbing by Niall Grimes.
We started climbing in the outermost corner of Donegal; a circle in a circle, a province within a province.
We met only ourselves and the only contact we had with the outside climbing world were the route names and people in our little guidebook Byzantium, Forked Lightning, Route Major, Big Slabber; D. Stelfox, B. McDermott, I. Rea, E. Cooper, C. Torrans. Mystical routes, and climbers whose initialled personalities seemed to render them unreal. Legendary, like Finn MacCool or Cuchullain.
But in Ireland, our climbing scene was small and tight, and on the occasional far-flung weekend to Antrim or The West, we started bumping into these characters, and initials broadened out into people. Dawson, Brian, Ian, Eddie, Calvin. They remained distant and heroic, all the same, despite their friendliness and lack of attitudes. It was just that they all seemed to belong to some exclusive club, that might never mean much to those who are in it, but which, from the outside, seemed impenetrable. They were The Climbing Scene.
The social centre of climbing in Fair Head, the Fair Head Hut (well, what do you expect), was deemed to be in need of refurbishment. A weekend was organised of willing volunteers, lured by the thought of some climbing, who would also be willing to hammer in a few nails in-between pitches. News reached me in Derry like a whispered Kitchener poster, and I knew my country needed ME. I hitched there on Friday, and met the climbers for a rowdy night in the boozer.
I had stayed in the hut once before, one wet weekend, days spent slipping round wet boulders beneath the crag’s mighty black walls, nights spent drinking in the pub, getting dirty looks from over-politicised farmers, and trying to catch the eyes of their daughters. To me, the hut was a marvel. Permission had somehow been gained, reputedly in return for an annual bottle of whisky, to turn the upper level of a dilapidated cowshed into a dark matratzenlager. To whit, two levels of propped chipboard were strewn with collections of dusty mattresses and settee cushions.
Besides the ‘bedroom’, there was a collection of work-tops, assorted cutlery, some old chairs. A gas heater that gave off quite a stink. A cooker; four rings that would give off a painfully underpowered heat, but yet managed to keep a dented kettle boiling continually, filling the gloomy insides with steam. In the corner, a gas lantern, its damaged mantle doing its best to dispel the day-or-night darkness; there was never much difference, except at night, the cows would return to the ground floor making strange noises, and a resident rat would scurry along the benches, tear holes in your bags of oatmeal, scatter your pasta. I would lie awake for hours with my hands over my face in terror. Apparently they drunk from your mouth.
I loved being in that hut. I even loved being frightened of the rat. Going there, and to other craggy spots round the country, were my first ever tastes of adventure. In those early days, climbing was not about running it out or performing or new routes: it was about the adventure, going away for the weekend to somewhere new, and meeting strange strangers. This, combined with the fact that I was too scared to climb on Fair Head, made me happy to spend the weekend swinging a hammer.
As it happened, Saturday dawned wet. Climbing was cancelled and we were all assigned to D.I.Y. duty. My friend Brian and I were told to go and put some whitewash on the back wall. I propped a shipwrecked ladder up against the wall, while he ascended with a tin and a brush. I footed the ladder, which was sat in an agglomeration of wet mud and cow guano. To keep out of this, I stood on the lowest rung. However, our combined weight began forcing the ladder downwards into the sucking depths of what seemed like a bottomless pool of dung. So I walked up a step. It sunk further. “Take in, Brian!” The upper part now dragged down the wall. This seemed to satisfy Brian, as he could whitewash wall at the same speed as the ladder descended. We soon met, however. But at least there was one perfectly painted strip of outside wall to our credit. We then struggled with the ladder for a while, unsuccessfully, whereupon Brian had to go and get a saw and amputate it at mud-level.
Such ‘helping out’ was punctuated by great tea drinking and chatter. A lot of it came from Calvin, who seemed to have an endless bank of stories about far-flung characters and unaccountable situations. He’d say things like “Here, have you heard the one about MacKenzie?” No, I wouldn’t have heard the one about MacKenzie, as I had never heard of MacKenzie, but the way he said it always wanted me to hear about him. I’d say, “No, what the hell’s MacKenzie done now?” Or the one about the time McHugh unclipped himself from the belay and walked down to the hut in the Mournes then when Tommy leaned back for a rest, he fell thirty feet onto the ground. Or when Billy Ireland told the wife he was going to get some chips and went to Greenland.
All these people were amazing, intriguing characters, that gave hints of a world that I was starting to see the edges of.
That night, the strip of wall whitewashed and some pieces of wood secured, we made our way to the pub. There the stories continued. Finally the drivers reckoned that if they drank any more they wouldn’t be able to get their keys in the ignition, so it was time to head back to the hut. Brian and I decided we would carry on the session, so abandoned the lifts. It was a long walk back to the hut, but drunk doesn’t think far into the future.
The night went via a couple of other pubs, to a terrible local dance type fiasco, where we made fools of ourselves, and damaged a mirror ball. We also obviously offended the local bog-men in some way, for they knocked into us very obviously and threateningly on several occasions. We were told to leave, and dutifully began a cold and windy seven-mile walk home, dressed in shirts and flannels. We chatted and chattered, trying to ignore the situation, for what felt like a long time. Half way home, on a lonely country lane, two cars passed us. Ahead, they turned round and passed us again. Third time past us, they pulled over. Doors opened, and an unfeasible number of muck-savages squeezed out and came angrily towards us. I looked at the hedge and fields as a possible escape, and that was as far as evasion plans went. I heard Brian go wanga-wanga-wannng, his version of the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and I knew I couldn’t run. The herd of farmers stampeded to us and over us, knocked us over, and as we lay in balls in the ditch, knocked us into the middle of next week. Boots and fists rained down, along with sectarian slogans and various questions as to our manhoods.
I then became aware that it was stopping, and a bright light in the corner of my eye. I righted myself, and when the Walt Disney birds had stopped orbiting my head, saw a wedding coach had stopped by the roadside. The bog-men scattered, and we stood up, bloodied and busted. “Two to Ballycastle please!”
We got dropped off at the emergency ward, where we were stitched up and sent on our ways with a reprimand. We then had to start the walk home again, and two hours later, staggered into the hut. We quietly and meekly went to bed and got some sleep. In the morning Calvin was up and frying bacon. We woke up. I was beside Brian in the upper bunks. His eye was a massive purple fruit. We were both crusted in blood. We sniggered, and got up. When Calvin saw us, he erupted in laughter. “What happened you ejits? Eddie,” he called, “Come and see this!” Eddie shook his head in amazement at our stupidity. “Why didn’t ya run? I’d have been across them fields like a shot.” “We weren’t going to run,” we boasted. “No, you need brains to run.” The ridicule continued without respite, with more and more people laughing at us. I eventually cleaned myself up, and later in the day, went home. Feeling stupid.
Two weeks later I was in Dublin to see Brian, and when we walked round the streets, we bumped into someone he knew from the climbing scene. “Hi Chris,” he said. “Ah,” he said. “Butch and Sundance. Calvin told me what happened to you two.” He went on to ask about the event, Brian gave our embellished version of it, wherein we actually got a swing at the farmers, and it all sounded funnier. It had become a story. I was no longer embarrassed about it. Calvin had told someone about it, had used our names in one of his tales. Looking back, I remember how chuffed I felt, and remember that for the first time, I felt a sense of belonging to the climbing scene.
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