The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans

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Don Whillans was a hilarious speaker, very funny, modest and authoritative. The most hilarious lecture I ever heard him present was the one about Roraima, including the famous line,

Unsworth, Walt (2000). Everest: The Mountaineering History. Seattle, WA, US: Mountaineers Books. ISBN 978-0898866704. Douglas, Ed (6 March 2005). "Don Whillans: the vertical beatnik". The Observer. Archived from the original on 12 September 2017 . Retrieved 18 January 2020. The expedition proved to be Britain's most important mountaineering achievement since the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition. [101] Hamish moved to Glen Coe in the same year. He greatly enjoyed the challenge of the local mountains. He formed the Glencoe School of Winter Climbing and in 1961 founded the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team which he led for 30 years. Hamish introduced new mountain rescue techniques and equipment and became world-renowned as a rescue expert. Carrying stretchers was one of the most difficult tasks faced by any rescue team. Hamish developed a folding stretcher in the early 1960s which was made from aluminium alloy, weighing only 18kg. This first stretcher has been improved over time and is still a vital piece of rescue equipment used widely around the world. I loved Don. I never saw him be mean-spirited, though I did know he drank and had his frustrations. He was especially intolerant of people who overrated themselves or simply did not know what they were talking about. I respected that quality in him, although he could have tempered his opinions, certainly, at times. I don't think I ever saw him get wrankled with someone who didn't deserve it.

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And somehow, with an astonishing force of will , Whillans turned what might have been a patchy career into glittering success, reaching the summit on 27 May with Scottish climber Dougal Haston.

The stuffed Piranha in a case on the wall was fascinating for us kids too. That and the motorbikes. One of my brothers is as much of a bike nut as Don was. I still remember him asking to be allowed to wash Don's Honda off-roader. Most active in the 1950s and 60s, Brown established a number of new routes in Snowdonia and the Peak District, which were at the leading edge of the hard grades.

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Rescues on the hills and mountains of Scotland became a significant part of Hamish’s life. Hamish writes, 'Only too often it is a fight for life: there is nothing more satisfying than the successful evacuation of a critically injured person on a highly technical rescue, where a single mistake could result in the death of the casualty. It is, on a grand scale, a game of chance in which nature holds most of the cards'. That first climb was a new route up a steep buttress at the Roaches, a series of gritstone crags that emerge from the Staffordshire moorland like a dragon's crest. Man and Mountain, it's fair to say that Sir Chris Bonington found his calling in remote high areas across the globe. But when did he first realise he was made for the mountains? And did anything ever stand in his way of making these daring ascents? Mountain Heritage Trust's own Jonny Dry explains how Sir Chris' love of climbing and mountaineering helped him resist the status quo. Hamish met Chris Bonington in 1953. They shared first winter ascents of Agag’s Groove, Crowberry Ridge Direct and Raven’s Gully on Buachaille Etive Mor. During the same year, Hamish and John Cunningham set sail from New Zealand to attempt to make the first ascent of Everest. Much to their disappointment they found that they had been beaten to the summit by a team led by John Hunt. The two men set their sights on Pumori and ascended to above 22,000ft. In deteriorating weather conditions, the climbers became exhausted and had to retreat.

My few memories of Don, apart from family gatherings at Christmas and such, are from the house at Penmaenmawr. I went there with my family several times when they had just moved in. A lot of stuff goes on round here (North Lakes) which is very much off the radar. There are many climbers close by, quite a few famous, some less so. A couple of years ago we had a Hesket Spiders lecture evening where there were a couple of talks about new routes, climbing in France, then Doug Scott gave an excellent talk about Don. He wanted to correct the impression that Don was (according to Perrin) "a villain". It was a generous, adulatory little talk, much enjoyed and quite touching. Clearly Don to those who really knew him was a top man, very kind, likeable, tough yes, but very fair. Doug was certainly very complimentary about Don. There are many Whillans jokes doing the rounds, one of the best being the World Cup joke when Whillans gave his response to Dyrenfurth's comments on "national sports" on the International Everest Expedition. I'm one of Don's nephews. I read the book but was disappointed in that I don't feel that I know any more about Don than I did before I read it, except perhaps that the booze was a much worse problem for him than I had realised. Don was a diamond. I met him once in the Llanberis pub, and college friends of mine lived next to him in Lancashire, Loveclough or Crawshawbooth, somewhere like that, but he had already started his beer training.

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I didn't know Don at first hand well at all, most of my knowledge of him and his activities I gained second-hand from my parents and grandparents. That's why I had hoped this book would give me a broader understanding of the man. Perrin knew both men well and believes their climbing styles reflected the differences in their characters.