Wild Wanderings by Phil Gribbon sampler

wild wanderings
Naturally the happy pair had arrived at the hut after the usual appalling walk
up the Allt a’Mhuilinn:
Some strange Irish logic of Phil’s tried to convince me that mine
was the correct introduction to a Club Meet at the cic hut.
(SMCJ, 2013, p412).
I’m afraid this introduction reads more like character assassination, but I’m
sure Phil will enjoy the jokes at his expense and, no doubt, get his own back.
To be serious for a moment, this book is crammed with the life of a man
who has been perceptively absorbed in the mountain scene all his days. His
work contains many subtleties and different levels of meaning – not all of
which are immediately apparent.
One can make much of the master/pupil relationship and, of course, it is
there, but the only actual word of instruction I can remember Phil giving me
was on Shadow Buttress on Lochnagar in 1973.
‘Don’t take such big steps,’ he said. A remark with a much wider application,
I feel. A good teacher doesn’t have to say very much.
On one famous occasion when we camped in spring sunlight by Loch
Maree on the Club’s Easter Meet, our much loved Hon Secretary called us
a pair of ‘skinflints’ for not staying in the hotel. Of course the remark was a
joke, but Phil was aghast:
‘What! We’ve had our dinner looking up at Slioch, utterly at one with
nature and you lot are sitting in a plastic bar...!’
Perhaps George Reddle should have the last word. After a cathartic row
on the way back from a failed attempt on the Pinnacle Ridge of Sgùrr nan
Gillean, when an abseil rope got stuck and all sorts of mayhem ensued,
Patrick O’Dwyer felt the need to make a sincere apology to his old friend:
‘That’s all right, lad,’ said Reddle, lowering the paper he’d
borrowed and smiling his strange smile. ‘I’d get you a drink, but
I’ve left my wallet in the hut.’ (SMCJ, 2001, p.503).
Read this book, then read again, with increasing pleasure.
Pete Biggar
Hon Editor
Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal
14