Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A mountaineer who survived a fall in the Peruvian Andes and wrote the bestselling book 'Touching the Void', later adapted into an award-winning film.
On the island
Eight records
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.
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.
Tiësto featuring Nicola Hitchcock
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every DayFavourite
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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:42How come when you got [to Ampleforth] you didn't turn to God?
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 … mourned the loss of my faith for a long time.
Presenter asks
5:17Why did you choose to climb that particular mountain, Siula Grande?
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.
Presenter asks
10:13Why did you decide to go further down into that black hole, down the crevasse?
The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
a drinks maker that produces any drink at the exact temperature
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 clearly not allowed to get off this [island], 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.
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.
Presenter asks
12:36What drove you on [during the three and a half days of crawling]?
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. 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 … 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.
Presenter asks
15:07Why do you feel grateful towards [Simon Yates] for having [cut the rope]?
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. … I didn't blame him for that. I thought well he just thought I was dead.
Presenter asks
19:08Why do you now have that kind of ambivalent attitude towards Ampleforth?
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.
“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.”
“If you make no decisions, you're dead in the water.”
“I think extreme mountaineering is irrational and it's also wonderful. And I can't explain it.”
“I think the heartbreak is not worth the love.”
“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.”