Joe Simpson

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a mountaineer. Brought up in an army household, he was sent away to boarding school, where he learned the essential skills of self reliance, without which, he admits, he might never have survived a momentous, life threatening experience that changed him forever.

Presenter0:46

While climbing in Peru, his companion was forced to cut the rope that held him. He fell into a crevasse and spent three days and three nights crawling back to base camp with a broken leg.

Presenter0:57

He should have died, and his book about the experience, Touching the Void, became a bestseller and an award winning film.

Presenter1:04

He should also never have climbed again, but he has, although these days his living comes from his writing and his lectures.

Presenter1:10

The worst thing you can do is know your death, he says. I knew my death for several days, and it wasn't good. He is Joe Simpson. So you looked death in the eye for a protracted period, Joe. I suppose it might be the same on a desert island, really, although you will have water, maybe, and you won't have a busted leg.

Joe Simpson1:28

Yes, um

Joe Simpson1:30

I suppose I did. I mean, for the best part of four days, I suppose, I'd accepted I was going to die. I couldn't see I kept sort of struggling to survive, but I really couldn't see any way that I would. I've always said that I think the reason I kept crawling was not because I thought I was going to survive, but because I didn't want to die alone. I wanted someone to hold me.

Presenter1:48

So what was the void that you touched? I mean, it obviously wasn't a a physical void, it wasn't a psychological void, because you passed those tests, didn't you?

Joe Simpson1:57

Yeah, the void and the title. I mean, the title took me ages to work out. I wrote the book in about seven weeks, and it all just came rushing out. And then I was sort of rushing up and downstairs from the attic I was writing in to see my friends saying I'd say what, a condor circle? And they'd go, oh, no, no, and I'd come up with another one. And I wrote a whole list of things down, sort of emotions that I thought that I'd experienced. And the word void came out. And it has so many different nuances in in English. And to me, to a degree, I think void was being twenty-five, being fit and young and full of ambitions and dying and looking into the end of everything. And there was no one there for me. There was nothing there. And which I believed, but to have it confirmed was a void that I was staring into, I suppose.

Speaker 12:19

And and

Presenter2:42

But you were brought up a Catholic. You went to Ampleforth, you know, England's leading Roman Catholic school. How come when you got there?

Presenter2:49

You didn't turn to God.

Joe Simpson2:51

Well, I was very devout actually as a youngster. I think at about fourteen I wanted to be a priest. Um I asked some serious questions when I was about sixteen and the monks who were fine, good people, couldn't answer them for me and it it became apparent to me that the whole thing rested on blind faith and I simply didn't have that and I realised then that I had no belief in any sort of God. And I felt very cond actually. I felt very angry and I

Speaker 12:57

Um

Joe Simpson3:18

I mourned the loss of my faith for a long time.

Presenter3:20

But that was when you were sixteen, you know, finally when you're twenty five and you're up against it and there is no one and you're feeling insignificant and lost and anticipating death. I am amazed that someone who once wanted to be a priest doesn't in that moment think

Presenter3:35

They must be God will help them.

Joe Simpson3:36

Well, no. Because in those intervening years I'd been to university and I'd studied philosophy and I'd thought about things and I'd tried to cobble together something to replace the faith I'd had and I always wondered that if everything hit the fan, would I

Joe Simpson3:51

turn round and say a few are fathers, a few are Marys and the fact that there was nothing down for me and I never did confirmed to me my lack of faith and um it strengthened me in a way, I think.

Presenter4:07

Tell me about record number one.

Joe Simpson4:08

In those long and strange days in Peru, lots of fairly weird things happened to my head. Some of it delirious, some of it sensory deprivation or whatever. And at one point I got this song going through my head. It's not what some people would think. It was actually a song I really liked. And I didn't actually know that I knew all the lyrics and I knew every single lyric. It was a band that I used to listen to in the 80s and I just liked it.

Speaker 34:34

Oh back.

Speaker 34:36

And the sun burns into your eyes

Speaker 34:40

You watch a plane flying.

Speaker 34:44

Across the clear blue sky.

Speaker 34:47

This is the day.

Speaker 34:50

Your life will surely change

Speaker 34:54

This is the day when things fall into place

Presenter5:02

That was the the singing this is the day, this is the day when things fall into place. Is that really what you thought on that mountainside in Peru?

Joe Simpson5:09

The track also goes and this is the day your life will surely change. Well, um it was changing rapidly, but not to the good as far as I could work out.

Presenter5:15

Yeah.

Presenter5:17

Look, there'll be people listening who don't know what happened back in 1985 on the side of that mountain. Well, on the top of that mountain, Ciula Grande it was called in Peru. Let's give a brief resume. In 1985, you and Simon Yates, he was 21, you were 25, two anarchic young men, you've said, who wanted to climb the world. Why that particular mountain? What was special about it?

Joe Simpson5:38

Well we'd sort of gradu graduated from a sort of apprenticeship in the Alps, climbing hard routes in the Alps and in the winter in the Alps and although we were young we were we were good climbers. We were you know members of the Alpine climbing group and climbed a very high standard but we wanted to do new routes where people hadn't gone before. We'd heard from friends of ours in Sheffield who'd climbed in the mid seventies near Sula Grand that the West Face was unclimbed. We knew it had been attempted by five expeditions and it all failed. We knew it would be hard and we thought great that looks like the thing we want to do.

Presenter6:06

And you were climbing Alpine style, which is just the two of you roped together, n no retreat line, no nothing.

Joe Simpson6:11

Yeah, you don't fix ropes, you you don't have radios, you don't take oxygen, you just go on your own. And you're very committed when you climb like that. If you have even a minor accident, it can be a death sentence.

Presenter6:22

So let let let's cut to the moment, because you did it. Against all the odds, you got to the top, it was very taxing, you were out of water, you were exhausted, but you'd achieved your aim, and then you began the descent, and it was at that point that you fell and you really smashed your leg, didn't you? You jammed the bottom half of your leg up through the knee into the upper half.

Joe Simpson6:41

Yeah, we'd done the ascent in very good style and we were in control. I felt all the way. We perhaps didn't look after ourselves well enough and we didn't take quite enough food and gas because we were trying to go as light as possible. So when I did break my leg it was at about 20,000 feet. My lower leg, my tibia, was driven up straight through my knee joint and I also broke my heel and my ankle of that leg but I didn't notice that.

Presenter7:06

But as you said, there was no possibility of any rescue because of the the geography of where you were.

Joe Simpson7:10

And I thought Simon would have to leave me at that point. And what was quite extraordinary was his attempt to try and rescue me and lower me down the mountain, which was quite humbling really. I mean, he put his life on the line for hours and hours and hours.

Presenter7:26

Lowering you down on a rope and then coming and joining you and lowering you.

Joe Simpson7:29

In the teeth of a storm, uh frostbitten, r rarely if ever having solid anchors, so if what he was sitting in had collapsed he'd be pulled to his death.

Presenter7:37

And and then suddenly he lowers you over the edge of something. You can't know that'cause he's high up above you, but you find yourself dangling in space on the end of this rope.

Joe Simpson7:46

On the end of this road. It went even wrong. In fact, the whole story, it just got worse and worse. Simon hung on to me for about an hour and a half and I'd have no idea how he did that. And it was like being on a fishing line. And I knew he was going to come off at any minute.

Presenter7:59

He was being pulled off the match.

Joe Simpson8:00

Yeah, and I was going into shock and hypothermia and I was

Joe Simpson8:05

angry actually because we'd tried so hard and we were literally about one rope length from the bottom of the mountain.

Presenter8:08

Literally about

Presenter8:10

Suddenly

Joe Simpson8:12

I found myself free falling and I knew Simon had come off and then I fell eighty feet, hit the roof of the crevass and then fell

Joe Simpson8:20

about eighty feet into the c this big crevass.

Presenter8:22

But you were still alive.

Joe Simpson8:23

I smashed into a snow ledge. Yeah, I wasn't feeling great, but I was still alive. And when I looked at the rope, it was going up to the roof of the crevasse through my entry hole. And I thought Simon's flown off the top of the cliff, fallen 300 feet, he's dead. I'll pull on the rope. It'll come tight on his body, which will act as a counterweight. And I can, using various slings, I can climb out. And of course, the the end of the rope came down, it was frayed, and I knew it meant two things. It meant that Simon was alive, and he had my knife.

Joe Simpson8:51

So

Presenter8:52

and you were alone in a deep dark crevasse.

Presenter8:55

Let's pause there and have another record for this desert island, although I'm not sure the desert island is anything different from what you call it.

Joe Simpson9:01

Well at least it'll be warm.

Joe Simpson9:04

Um John Martin. I I was torn between John Martin and Ben Morris and I listened to a lot of them. I've chosen a track called May You Never Lay Your Head Down without a hand to hold, partly because I used to listen to it a lot on expeditions. And one time I was I had some clients in Peru and there wasn't enough room in the tent so I volunteered to sleep outside. You sort of dig a coffin in the snow and just lie in it in your sleeping bag. It's quite comfy actually. And I remember listening to John Martin on on my headphones, looking at the stars and feeling pretty happy and so that's why I've chosen this one.

Speaker 39:34

Uh

Speaker 39:43

And a whole

Speaker 39:45

Yeah.

Speaker 39:53

Just like a Britain's own brother I'm minded, You know that I love you truly

Speaker 310:01

You never talkin' to see behind my back and I

Presenter10:05

That was John Martin and May You Never. So the next morning, Joe Simpson, you took a decision which...

Presenter10:13

Defies logic, but it seems completely counterintuitive. You decided to go further down into that black hole, down the crevasse. Why?

Joe Simpson10:21

Well, by the time I'd calmed down and I spent all night shouting for Simon, I realised by about nine o'clock in the morning that he was either dead, which is very likely, or, you know, having fallen trying to get down, or he thought I was dead, because he would have found me by then. And I'd tried three times to climb these overhanging ice walls with a shattered leg and I couldn't do it. So I couldn't go up, I couldn't go sideways. And if I stayed where I was, I knew I would eventually die very slowly, and I didn't have the courage to kill myself. So I thought, well, I'll use my half of the rope and go down. And I didn't know what was down there. And if there was nothing down there, I'll just go off the end of the rope and it would be quick. It was. It was the most difficult decision I've ever made in my life. And I think in a lot of things, I mean, you have to keep making decisions. Even the bad ones, at least you're moving forward. If you make no decisions, you're dead in the water.

Presenter11:07

If you make

Presenter11:09

At least you have some control. You're moving, that's the thing. You've got to keep.

Joe Simpson11:10

You're moving, that's the thing. You've got to keep some sort of momentum. And eighty feet lower down, I found a sort of false ceiling that I could crawl across, and I knew it was false'cause I could feel things breaking away beneath me. But on the other side, I got to a slope that led I had to climb 160 feet up this very steep slope and eventually stuck my head out of the grass. And I can remember I was just laughing. I was so relieved to get out of this place. It was like a claustrophobic, buried alive, long, slow, maddening death. And I was out of it.

Presenter11:36

Mm.

Presenter11:39

I was out of it. You couldn't believe your lie.

Joe Simpson11:42

I hadn't thought any further. I just wanted to get out of this black hole. And I remember sitting there in the sun, you know, giggling, and then I looked to my left, and a long way off to the left, I saw this blue rope hanging down.

Joe Simpson11:52

And I stopped giggling and looked down the glacier and there were tracks on the glacier and I knew Simon was alive and and I felt very pleased. You know, it was a friend of mine. I didn't want him to be dead.

Presenter11:59

Friend of mine.

Presenter12:01

If if you were able-bodied, how long would it then have taken you to get down back to base camp from that point?

Joe Simpson12:10

More than two two hours, two three hours, maybe.

Presenter12:13

How long did it take you, in fact?

Joe Simpson12:14

best part of three and a half days and nights. Yeah. It it wasn't just like crawling seven miles down the M one, you know, it was it was desperate ground. And and I I looked at the distance I had to go, the condition I was in and the lack of food and and water and I just thought there's no possible way I can do that physically. And and

Speaker 312:23

Yeah.

Speaker 112:23

And

Presenter12:33

Physically yeah.

Joe Simpson12:34

But I just carried on. I mean I

Presenter12:36

But what drove you on, then?

Joe Simpson12:38

Initially, uh it was an anger, I think. Um you know, this this wasn't in my game plan. I was twenty five, I wanted to climb all over the world, I wanted to live forever, I this was not supposed to happen.

Joe Simpson12:50

And apart from a a a knackered leg, I was pretty fit and healthy, you know, and I you know, I didn't want to die. And um so it was anger as well. A lot of it was anger. I was pretty angry with things. And I think also it was a sense I was aware

Presenter12:54

Yeah.

Presenter12:56

So it's anger.

Joe Simpson13:01

that this was gonna be a long, slow dying and I was gonna do it on my own and I I never once thought of uh turning to God and uh uh that was um as much a driving thing. I think if for one moment I'd ever thought um if I say a few prayers someone will help me or I should go and meet my father and die, I would have just sat and died.

Presenter13:24

So you did get there, finally, and luckily and happily Simon was still there. Sheer fate made me.

Joe Simpson13:30

I got it at three in the morning and he was leaving at six. The the sense was it sounds melodramatic, but it's like you're being led to the gallows and someone then puts an arm round your shoulder and says, It's okay, Joe, you don't have to do this and I I was just bawling my eyes out and I but I was gone really. So but they were pretty shocked as well. I mean it's quite a shock, you know, four days later to have someone you think is dead rock up outside your tent.

Presenter13:56

Record number three.

Joe Simpson13:58

In My Memory by DJ Tiesto. In the last three years I've really got into club music, particularly trance music, and in fact I'd like all eight to have been it, but I couldn't because they're much too long. I've only heard this very recently. It's a lovely track called In My Memory after the same title of the C D, sung by Nicola Hitchcock.

Speaker 314:33

What's away?

Speaker 314:42

Strikes me feeling in love with me

Presenter14:47

Nicola Hitchcock and In My Memory. Joe Simon has since taken a huge amount of stick from the mountaineering community and others for having cut that rope. It's been said it was unethical, immoral and something. And yet you said thank you to him, didn't you? And you wrote the book, in fact, to help him ward off that criticism.

Presenter15:07

Why do you feel grateful towards him for having done it?

Joe Simpson15:12

Well, um, it's dedicated, Simon, you know, to saving my life. I mean, you know, I never people always ask would would I have cut the rope? They always ask when I was angry. Of course I wasn't. I mean, when I found the rope was cut, I actually thought, good on you, mate, well done. You you kept everything together, you stayed cool. We're both still in the game when he left.

Presenter15:28

Mm-hmm.

Joe Simpson15:30

I didn't blame him for that. I thought well he just thought I was dead.

Presenter15:33

It's funny, though, that it touched a a a nerve, didn't it, with the nation. I mean, as I say, outside the mountaineering community, it's like this kind of

Presenter15:40

Oh, I don't know, it became a metaphor for friendship, didn't it? Cutting the bond, cutting the umbilical cord.

Joe Simpson15:43

Well custom

Joe Simpson15:45

It's because one, they're not mountaineers. I mean the book sold over a million copies in 17 languages, of which 85% of the people who read the book have never read a mountaineering book or climbed in their lives.

Speaker 115:52

Good.

Joe Simpson15:55

They also appropriate the story for themselves. They're looking at this story going, what would I do? Would I be brave, strong, weak? Would I cut the rope? Would I try and save someone? And that's a natural thing. But I never thought the book would do what it did. I thought if it sold to a thousand climbers, then Simon would be vindicated and on we'd go. I didn't think that twenty years later I'd still be telling this damn story.

Presenter16:16

But a hugely successful book and a successful film. You've written other books since about mountaineering, and you've written a novel.

Presenter16:24

I mean, obviously, you are more respected today as a writer than as a mountaineer. Does that worry you?

Joe Simpson16:31

No. In fact, I hate it sometimes when in the press I'm described as, you know, one of Britain's best mountaineers. I mean, uh, you know, I I wasn't. I aspired to be, and I was a very good mountaineer, but I I was nowhere near

Joe Simpson16:43

The heroes of British Mountaineering. And I think yes, my a lot of my books are are not only read by climbers, but a huge amount by the non-climbers. And and so um they're adventurous and philosophical and and they are things that I would never have done if I hadn't had this accident. I mean I w never wanted to be a writer, I had no idea that I could write and what would have happened if none of this had happened would have gone to climb harder and harder roots and I'd probably be dead by now.

Presenter17:09

Code number four.

Joe Simpson17:11

Joy division. This reminds me of the eighties and we had a mad winter in in Chamonix in the French Alps, a whole bunch of us and playing hard and climbing hard and love all terrors apart. I just associate it with those days, winter climbing in in the Alps.

Speaker 317:26

On your side Is my timing that floor Our respect runs so dry Yet there is still this appeal If we've kept rewire

Speaker 317:42

Love, love will tear it apart again Love, love will tear it apart again

Presenter17:56

Joy division with love will tear us apart. Um Joe Simpson, give me a thumbnail sketch then of the boy who was to grow up into such a kind of self reliant, courageous cynic.

Joe Simpson18:09

I'm not sure about courageous. I'm certainly cynical. I'm I well, I was the youngest of five, so I had two brothers and two sisters. My ma was from Trillee in Kerry, Southern Ireland. My da was half Scottish, half Lancashire, I think.

Joe Simpson18:24

And um born in Malaya and and travel the army life which means you're moving every couple of years and

Presenter18:29

He was a lieutenant colonel, wasn't it?

Joe Simpson18:30

In the end.

Presenter18:31

Yeah.

Joe Simpson18:31

And the longest serving major in the army, he said.

Joe Simpson18:34

So

Presenter18:34

So it was a sort of peripatetic childhood, and you were the youngest of five, and you have a theory, I think, that the youngest take the greatest risks, is that right?

Joe Simpson18:42

Not not exactly the greatest risk, but I I've got I I've been told that, you know, uh every newborn has to find its niche and you know there's the first fellow along there's lots of niches to choose and by the time you're fifth down there's not many niches left and uh I'm not sure how true that is. I know that we had a very competitive, argumentative, loving family and uh you had to argue black is white to get anywhere, which is probably rather useful experience for later on in life, but um

Presenter19:07

But um

Presenter19:08

And school um I mentioned um Ampleforth the family obviously were were strong Catholics. You were an altar boy, you wanted to be a priest and so on. That was a serious ambition. Why do you now have that kind of ambivalent attitude towards Ampleforth?

Joe Simpson19:22

I think some of the things that uh you seem to be taught uh some seemed misogynistic and some seemed class ridden and things that I didn't later like at all. And um I'm not an inverted snob, but I I didn't like some attitudes that were taught. But the education was superb.

Presenter19:41

And obviously, the education in self-reliance was superb because that's what you called on in that moment. I mean, you have made that statement. If you hadn't gone to a very good school, you wouldn't have been able to survive.

Joe Simpson19:51

No, I'm what I was saying actually was that um I don't think it's a brilliant idea to send you away at eight years old. Other people do. I don't. Um I you know my ma always said that she had the best years of our life stolen from from her and I think that uh it forms part of your personality and to be sent away like that can have a negative effect on you. It can make you feel rejected. It can make you very good at learning to hug yourself. It can make you quite an avoidant personality, determined to

Joe Simpson20:18

be an island, and always find your own way.

Presenter20:21

This is all true of user.

Joe Simpson20:23

I think

Joe Simpson20:24

A lot of that is true of me in the nature of the relationships I've had in my life and the loves I have and lost and also the way I've

Joe Simpson20:33

sometimes reacted to things like improve and so on I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's how I am and it's helped me in some ways and screwed up other things in other ways, just as life does.

Presenter20:43

Echo number five.

Joe Simpson20:46

This is taking from a C D um Paul Oakenfold live at the NEC. I think I saw him at the NEC. And in recent years, I said I've I've really got into

Joe Simpson20:55

Club Trance Music and the second track on this rapture is performed by Io and I just think it's um her voice particularly is is gorgeous and um

Joe Simpson21:07

Good choice, I think.

Speaker 321:12

Sugar, you make my soul complete. We're right to take someone's feet.

Speaker 321:19

Let's go.

Presenter21:34

That was IO and Rapture. So you went to Edinburgh University, Joe, to read English and Philosophy. Ironically, considering what was to happen to you later, you wrote a thesis on existentialism, didn't you? Which is um what a philosophy that says we're responsible for our own system of values in and otherwise

Presenter21:54

Meaningless universe. Did you think about this when you were stuck on the side?

Joe Simpson21:57

I did. Well, yes, to a degree. Well, um I I was actually doing a uh an honours degree, and masters honours degree and I my my honours dissertation was um existentialism is a form of literary criticism and God knows why I chose that'cause it was desperate. But anyway I I completed it. Um but there was a lot of it in it and the humanism in it that that I found I could work out some sense, some philosophical sense that would replace religion to a degree.

Presenter22:23

Did you actually thought about this when you were stuck on the side?

Joe Simpson22:27

No, no, no, god no, I didn't think of any of that. No. But I mean, you know, when you do think about how things have happened to you and w and you try and you know, think of your responsibilities for or not for something, well, you know, it really comes down to the end. It's always your fault. You can never stand and blame other people.

Presenter22:42

Quite particularly if you career around Europe climbing every mountain in sight, because that's what you want to do. And having other life threatening I mean before

Joe Simpson22:42

But if you

Joe Simpson22:45

Smith

Joe Simpson22:47

Yeah.

Speaker 322:47

Ah!

Joe Simpson22:50

Oh yes, yeah. And many friends being killed. I mean we we do things, you know, that there's some people will poo-poo it and go, well it was a silly, irresponsible waste of life and it's causing a sort of drain on the tax value. Well is it rubbish? We we pay for our own insurance and you know when we get killed or hurt we take responsibility for the choices we made that you know coming from a blame culture that refuses to accept any responsibility for what they do and you know sues everybody else for it. I I always found that rather irritating.

Presenter23:08

Anyways.

Presenter23:13

But what is it all about? You've written in another of your books, in one called The Beckoning Silence. Let me quote you. It says, It it seemed to me that if I could escape the need to know the future and free myself from the constraints of the past, acting in and only for the present, then I could achieve absolute freedom.

Joe Simpson23:33

Possibly. I mean I d I I think I I I also wrote about that in this game of Ghosts and it was uh it was about trying to to work out why there is this paradox. There there is something mountaineering that you love with a passion. It's life enhancing and life defining and yet it's killing your friends and very nearly killing you on a number of occasions and so why would the two mix and that's irrational. I don't I think extreme mountaineering is irrational and it's also wonderful. And I can't explain it. And uh

Presenter24:01

I think you just did record number six.

Joe Simpson24:05

This is a track called Broken by Lustrel and it's on a CD by Matt Hardwick. Matt Hardwick's a resident DJ at Gatecrasher in Sheffield. This CD in particular is absolutely gorgeous. Broken's a very sad track and reminds me of a time when I was pretty heartbroken and was listening to it all the time. But the rest of the tracks are all about being in love and what it feels like and that's why I like listening to it.

Speaker 324:31

I'll miss you.

Presenter25:01

That was lustrel with Broken about falling in love and having your heart broken. Um, Joe, you're forty four and you haven't married, although I suppose there's plenty of time yet, but you're

Joe Simpson25:11

No, I can't mate in captivity.

Presenter25:14

What does that mean?

Joe Simpson25:15

I think I think uh May West said that. Um I I've I've never wanted children, so um all my brothers and sisters have got more children than they know what to do with, and uh I've never felt remotely paternalistic. While I was climbing I couldn't couldn't see that uh I'd want to get married and um

Presenter25:33

But marriage isn't all about having children. Marriage is just about commitment to one person.

Joe Simpson25:33

But marriage

Joe Simpson25:37

Well, that doesn't mean I can't commit to someone. I mean, marriage in itself, I mean, if I was a gambler, I wouldn't take those odds on gambling the rest of my life on the the off chance of happiness. I mean, it's twenty five percent, thirty percent failure rate.

Presenter25:49

Or is it all to do with, and I'm not the first person to observe this, the fact that actually you got married nineteen years ago to that mountain?

Joe Simpson25:58

Well, I do seem to be alone a lot, which I do wonder why. But then I'm pretty difficult to be with, actually. I I'm happy enough. I have a lot of friends that I love and I'm happy enough. I don't really want to get into something that will inevitably fail. They always do fail. And I'd rather not have that misery. I think the heartbreak is not worth the love.

Speaker 126:11

I

Presenter26:22

But it did change your life, what happened on that mountain. And you went back a couple of years ago, didn't you, to um help make the film, Touching the Void, that's been so successful, one of AFTA indeed. It had a very weird effect on you, the going back, didn't it?

Joe Simpson26:36

Yes, I mean it triggered memories as if the thing had happened a few minutes ago. And um I when I got back to Sheffield I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and had a pretty bad time and

Presenter26:47

So you never had any therapy for it?

Joe Simpson26:49

No, I don't agree with it really. I don't ask all those what if questions because they get you nowhere and they just would traumatise you and disturb you. And uh just keep moving forward. Don't don't sit there and stuck in the past, k making yourself miserable. Just forget about it, get a life, carry on. And going back was not moving forward, if you see what I mean, so I'm not gonna go back there again.

Speaker 126:57

Yeah.

Presenter27:12

Like one of seven.

Joe Simpson27:14

This and the next track, I suppose, um if I have a funeral or a memorial or anything, I wouldn't want anything religious, but I'd like this track and the next track to be played, largely because I'd hope it'd make everybody miserable. So but this is absolutely gorgeous. It's I Would Rather Go Blind. It's sung by Etta James and she's got a fantastic voice and I love it.

Speaker 327:37

Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah

Speaker 327:55

Then I see you walk away, see you walk away from me

Presenter28:00

Etta James and I would rather go blind. Um, Joe Simpson, the last question, the big question, is, of course, that an awful lot of people having listened to everything you've been saying.

Presenter28:11

would say, Look, mate, you know, God was there. Why on earth do you think you came through? Why did you survive? In fact, it was He who gave you the fortitude and the strength to do it. He was acting through you. The only problem is you don't care to acknowledge that.

Joe Simpson28:27

Uh no, that's their beliefs. And um that I'd respect their beliefs. I'd prefer if they'd keep it to themselves and not write me letters preaching to me. Uh if they wish to believe that, fine, I don't believe that. I find it strange of all the letters I've got, I've never received a letter from a Muslim or from a Hindu or from a Buddhist telling me how their gods made me live.

Presenter28:48

What do you draw from that?

Joe Simpson28:50

I don't know. I mean, I I've I've never quite understood. Maybe it's'cause I'm sort of white Anglo Saxon and the assumption is I must be Christian and and I'm I've rather lost my way and if you tell me enough times I'll come back, you know, and and it is insulting actually

Speaker 129:00

In

Joe Simpson29:02

If you think that I I'm reasonably well read and well educated and I've been through some fairly extreme times and I've thought long and hard about them and I've come to my own conclusions and I've had them tested actually under circumstances that many people have not had their religious convictions tested under, and this is what I believe.

Joe Simpson29:22

I just think, I mean, if I if if I'm tolerant of everybody else's religions, then somebody should be tolerant of my atheism. I'm not in hurting anybody by it.

Presenter29:31

Last record.

Joe Simpson29:32

This in many ways, um we I used to listen to the Pose years ago in in all sorts of mad states, but um this track, I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day, it reminds me of Ireland, it reminds me of my Ma, it's it reminds me of all sorts of things. And I also I like the words of the song I Would Like to Be a Man Like That, and uh uh if this was played at the funeral it'd really sort him out.

Speaker 329:53

But you're fair enough.

Joe Simpson29:54

If I have one.

Speaker 329:55

To come my dark

Speaker 329:58

And he might shoot up town in the county good day

Speaker 330:06

So be easy and free when you're drinking one day on your mind you don't each every day

Presenter30:17

Kato Redden and the Pogues singing I'm a man you don't meet every day. Um if you could only take one of those eight records, Joe, which one would you take?

Joe Simpson30:27

Probably the last one, just to make myself feel miserable.

Presenter30:29

Just for your memorial.

Joe Simpson30:30

Yeah.

Presenter30:31

Um what about your book?

Joe Simpson30:31

Come on.

Joe Simpson30:34

I I've got no idea. I've thought I mean, you know, of all the thousands of books I've ever read, you know, d do I want to read another one of those again? And I couldn't think of anything that I that I wanted and I thought, well, could I just have a blank book and a pen?

Presenter30:45

And you don't want the Bible, obviously.

Joe Simpson30:47

I don't want the Bible, no. Um there there are all sorts of different uh versions of the sutras which are perhaps the teaching of Gautama Buddha. It that they it's it's like the Buddhist equivalent of the Bible. It would be something to learn something different. Um but um no, I d I would not like the Bible.

Presenter31:04

What about your luxury?

Joe Simpson31:06

No idea about this one. I well, at first I wanted a satellite phone, but I don't think you allow me to have that'cause I'm I'm clearly not allowed to get off this iron, am I? So I'm obviously going to die on it. Um so I was thinking of a sort of a drinks maker that produces any drink you want at the exact temperature and then I could um drink myself to death.

Presenter31:10

Because I'm up

Presenter31:12

Um

Presenter31:21

Joe Simpson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Islanders.

Joe Simpson31:24

Thank you.

Speaker 131:32

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 332:22

Uh