28 September 1968 Stanage Edge in the Peak District is like a magnet to a new kind of set where, rather than money or position, climbing ability is the only standard you are judged on

Geoff, you look a treat hanging up there by your eyelashes.” The burly young man had apparently reached a critical point of no return on a sheer rock face, and was hanging motionless in the wind, undecided about his next move. The remark is typical of the good humour that crackles among the climbers who come to Stanage Edge. The Edge is a sudden outcrop of steepish rocks at the lip of a long plateau above the cosy little Hope Valley near Sheffield in the Derbyshire Peak Park. The climbers chaff one another mercilessly with repartee that is both witty and crude.



A whole host of people, mainly young and husky with beards and jeans, students and apprentices, but some older seasoned souls, come to Stanage Edge every weekend. The gritstone rocks are like a magnet. They swarm with enthusiasts. The road below can have as many as a hundred cars and there may be anything from 300 to 400 people climbing. Viewed from a distance, it’s a multicoloured antheap. Voices echo back loudly from the rock face. Ropes crisscross the rocks like the tendrils of creepers. There are children playing below while fathers and mothers hang above them. Non-climbing girlfriends try to huddle out of the wind and rain, and are ready to hand out hot coffee or tea from a Thermos whenever required.

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It’s a classless crowd. Voices have Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cockney and Scots accents. People come from Salford, Derby, Manchester, Sheffield, Leicester – by bus, motorbike, car. Students, office types, steel workers, doctors, school teachers, they’re part of a crowd that moves around a lot. This weekend here, the previous one at Langdale in the Lakes, the next in North Wales. People get to know each other. It’s really a new kind of set, the climbing crowd. But one that isn’t dependent on money or position. There’s only one standard when you’re being judged on a rock face: whether you can get up or down.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A rock climber in the December sun at Stanage Edge, Derbyshire, 2015. Photograph: Michael Buddle/REX/Shutterstock

Stanage Edge is indeed a kind of nursery. It’s an ideal place for climbers to begin their first hesitant handholds because the rocks, though sheer, aren’t very high – perhaps 60 to 70 feet – and there is wide variety of grades of climb. “You can’t come to much harm here,” said one schoolboy. “It’s not very far to fall.” He and his friend were supposed to be at home studying for approaching examinations. But having started only about a year ago, they couldn’t resist the temptation to drive over from Wilmslow. The other two they usually climb with had chosen to remain behind and swot.

Neither of them seemed to have inhibitions about climbing, even at this stage. A fear of heights was something that just didn’t seem to arise. The reason why so many are there is a mixture, obviously, of excitement, a contact with sympathetic people, a sort of camaraderie which is instant, with a common language of enthusiasm, the gaining of a sense of achievement at the end of a good day, when you’ve managed to get the better of a particular buttress or chimney.

Everywhere you look on Stanage Edge there are people spreadeagled on a rock face, lodged in a crevice, inching along a ledge, or just hanging at rope end in a curious taut limbo. It’s a kind of climbers’ Blackpool. The talk flies back and forward, the words carried by a wind that sighs and whistles from the west over the Pennines. “Jack, did you know that you’ve got a hole in the seat of your trousers?” “Oh, I wondered why my crotch was so cold.” The reply comes from a point halfway up Ellis’s Chock, where all that can be seen is a jean-clad bottom and a rope hanging out over space. Figures above stand braced like statues against the skyline and the whirling clouds, carefully watching their climbing partners inching up from below. Someone gets stuck on the Flying Buttress and there are ironical handclaps and cheers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Climbers on Stanage Edge, Derbyshire, 1964. Photograph: Heritage Images/Getty Images

Lunchtime is a moment for swapping stories, experiences, and comments over sandwiches and chocolate. “John did that climb with a touch of elegance, I thought.” “Next time I’m going to do that buttress direttissimo – be damned if I’m not.” The talk is full of words – of abseiling, handholds and crampons, and traverses. The clothes that are worn are colourful – red, blue, orange, and green anoraks, and a variety of headwear including both knitted and hard helmets. Rope lies about everywhere. You can’t get away from the stuff. It’s an all-nylon world today. There’s a lively discussion about whether the new type of braided rope is better than the traditional three-stranded type. “The braided handles better and you don’t get kinks.” “Ah, but what about the centre of this new braided stuff – what about the grit getting in between the outer sheaf and working through the inner sheath where you can’t see it? What about that, eh?” “But the British Mountaineering Council have given the braided kind an excellent report, haven’t they?”

A man passed with an anxious look on his face. “Has anyone seen my wife?” he asked. “I saw something stuck in a crack back there,” was the reply, as stringent as the wind, and without a smile he went on his way. Then, peering over the edge, he saw her. “But she’s down there and I’m up here,” he said plaintively.

The pale lemon sunlight faded and the vivid colours in the surrounding landscape dulled. The clouds were building up as the afternoon passed on. It started to rain.

But that didn’t seem to disturb the climbers. “Ready to climb?” “Ready.” “OK.” The shouted formalities continued, and would do so into the early Sunday evening, until darkness came. The climbers then would go away, happy, muscles all aching and tired, but with a lungful of fresh Pennine air.

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