Wild Wanderings by Phil Gribbon sampler

introduction
I was chosen to go on the expedition to Upernivik Island in 1969. However,
a first year spent play acting, drinking, and falling madly in love with a
dark haired student with lovely green eyes meant that I failed all my exams
and couldn’t go. In a way, I’d let Phil down and he could just have abandoned
me. But he didn’t. I got a nice little note from him telling me to pass
those ‘durned exams’ and who knows what might happen in a couple of
years’ time. It lightened my despair and I dimly began to realise that underneath
all the bitter sarcasm there lurked something else. Over the ensuing
years I was to learn that he is a most faithful friend.
Two years later, having snared my green-eyed student for life (at least I
hope so!), I got the chance to go on the St Andrews University expedition to
the Cape Farewell region of Greenland and that was where my friendship
with Phil really began.
In the stories I’ve written about climbing with Phil, he appears as the
dour Yorkshireman George Reddle; the fabled dourness and tight-fistedness
of the Yorkshireman seem an appropriate representation of ‘that dour Ulsterman’
(as I once heard a colleague of his describe him). Being ‘tight-fisted’,
however, as one of my stories shows, has nothing to do with lack of generosity;
it is simply a rather amusing quirk of character. I cast myself as Patrick
O’Dwyer: a not so gentle hint at my Celtic ancestry.
In Untrodden Ways (SMCJ, 2007) Reddle and O’Dwyer set out to climb on
a pleasant crag in the North West:
Reddle led through, exclaiming over the excellence of the rock...
To his right was a steep slab devoid of holds, and to his left an
easier traverse… O’Dwyer could sense the temptation of the
steeper way tugging at the older man. He remembered many
times watching the soles of Reddle’s boots vanishing upwards,
remembered also how Reddle would pause before making the
vital move and make some light-hearted remark. Now, he hesitated...
O’Dwyer could sense a trembling in the rope...
‘George,’ he shouted up, ‘it looks much easier to the left.’ Reddle
looked down at him:
‘Don’t you fancy going right, eh?’ It was like a wasp sting
from the past. O’Dwyer winced...
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