“Some Letters From The Past”
by J. Geoffrey Brook
“The poison of mountain club journals is their tendency to become geographical and scientific.”
Sir Martin Conway.
The above quotation taken from a letter written by Sir Martin Conway, later Lord Conway, to Thomas Gray in 1899, will serve very well as a text and a justification for this article, which will contain nothing scientific, very little geographical, and will be only mildly historical in its meanderings through the meadows of the past. Our club is fortunate in possessing a magnificent library, and one of the most fascinating items in the library is a unique collection of letters written by famous mountaineers, past and present, ranging from Edward Whymper to Charles Evans.
Most of the older letters were written to Thomas Gray, the first Editor of this Journal, and we must praise his foresight in preserving them for our entertainment and edification.
I have though it prudent, however, for the purpose of this introductory article to confine my quotations to letters by climbers no longer with us, although the temptation to quote freely has been strong. There is, for example, a large number of characteristic letters written by our respected Nestor, Mr. E.E. Roberts, packed with interest and information, as well as correspondence from Sir John Hunt, Spencer Chapman and Charles Evans.
By far the larger part of this correspondence, however, comes from the pens of two men, W.C. Slingsby and W.A.B. Coolidge. It is only fitting and proper that the former should be given pride of place.
William Cecil Slingsby should need no introduction to Yorkshire Ramblers. He was one of the founders of our Club, was its President in 1899 when the first Journal was published, and one of its most honoured figures.
The impression one gains from these letters is that of an exuberant personality, bubbling over with boyish vitality and enthusiasm. His letters appear to have been dashed off in a white heat of energy, the bold flamboyant writing galloping all over the pages, and almost off them.
A favourite patriotic quirk of his was to prelude his message with a bold “God Save the Queen” in capitals at the top of the first page.
The editorship of the Journal could have been no sinecure in his day, for he always kept a piercing eye cocked for any fault or trace of vulgarity likely to besmirch the fair name of the Yorkshire Ramblers Club.
Cheapness of any sort, especially that of self advertisement, was anathema to Slingsby. One wonders, however, if this dislike cannot be carried too far. If the great mountaineers of the past had been too assiduous in hiding their light under a bushel we should have had no “Scrambles Amongst the Alps,” no “Playground of Europe,” and many other classics of mountain literature.
Slingsby, like all original characters, may have been mistaken in some things but he was never tedious or dull.
In a letter of 1898 to Gray he comments on Coolidge’s derogation of Mummery’s “My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus” :—
“Coolidge’s letters are very amusing. He is quite right about snow scenery, but as he never was in any sense a rock-climber, he cannot quite see the rock climber’s side. “Mummery’s dreadful book” ; Ah, Coolidge, you little know what a fine character Mummery was, and what a loss the world sustained by his death.”
Exhorting Gray that” members of the Y.R.C. must be whipped up once, twice, thrice for Dr. Anderson’s lecture (” he has a world wide reputation as an avalanche authority”). “fill the hall,” he exclaims, “if that cannot be done we must get a comic singer. But I think we can do without.” Then as an afterthought, “At the same time, a smoking concert might do some good.”
J.W. Robinson, whose name will be remembered as long as there is rock-climbing in the Lake District, wrote an article on “The West Wall of Deep Ghyll,” for the first Journal, but before it appeared Slingsby wrote to the editor :—
“Robinson’s name really must appear, and not a nom-de-plume. His name is really greater than he is aware of, and we are very lucky to get him. Come! We have really stolen a march on the A.C. and the Climbers Club, at least so I think — and the next thing is to get an illustration to accompany Robinson’s paper either of Scafell Crags as a whole or the identical crag.”
In a postcripts, he adds :
“I prefer Scafell to Scawfell and Wasdale to Wastdale Ask J.W.R.”
After the appearance of the first volume of the Journal Slingsby wrote to Gray :—
“My dear boy, you are a brick and a peerless editor, and if you heard what the editor of the S.M.C. Journal said to me last Saturday you would blush like a peony.”
In a letter of 1900 is heard an echo of the famous quarrel between Whymper and Coolidge over Almer’s jump, described and depicted by Whymper in his “Scrambles amongst the Alps.” The story is too well known to need re-telling here1, and Slingsby says :—
“Coolidge and Whymper are in the middle of a squabble. My sympathies are entirely with the latter, who, this time, is entirely in the right. Coolidge has left the A.C. and also the editing of Ball.”
Arising out of our President’s recent comment that the Club is tending to neglect caving, the sport on which its reputaton was largely founded, it is interesting to find Slingsby touching on the same subject in 1900.
“Of course, No. 2 (of the Journal) is going well. No. 1 created a reputation (always a dangerous possession) and No. 2 has well sustained it. You are on the right lines. Keep to it. The Y.R.C. has a speciality, Cave Hunting ; so far, admirably described, and possibly better illustrated. Your diagrams are excellent. For the next number a paper dealing with the pots of Penyghent (or some of them) should be prepared, and views taken. And of Sell Gill, a glorious place. If a Conan Doyle could be induced to make a descent and write a paper for us. By Jingo ! Well, bear it in mind. We must keep to caves, i.e. must have one or part of one good paper in every number.”
And in a later letter :
“For No. 4 I advise a good cave paper with views and diagrams as a bonne bouche, but not a single view of any finnicking, two penny-ha’penny rocks in Derbyshire or anywhere else. Caves first, Caves Second and Caves Third.
A diagrammatic fell view, something Alpine and snowy, English and beautiful, say a bridge, a waterfall, a cottage -or-or-or- ! but nothing like the view on page 218 if you please. I call it horrible, and only worthy of the C.C. Journal” !
For the benefit of readers who do not have back numbers of the Journal handy, it may be explained that the photo that aroused Slingsby’s wrath was one of Owen Glynne Jones climbing the Right Hand Crack, Cratcliff Tor, and carried the title ” A Derbyshire Memory of Owen Glynne Jones.” Another letter takes up a point of terminology,
“Who coined the word “cracklet” ? I wish you would discourage the use of the Frenchified word “arête ” when we have such a choice of good English. We have, I well know, no exact equivalent of “col” in English, but “gap,” “pass,” or “nick” will often, though not always, serve our purpose.”
Most of these letters were written, unfortunately, after Slingsby’s great climbing days in Norway, and the only reference to them arises in regard to the writing and publication of his book “Norway, The Northern Playground.”
He mentions climbing on Norwegian aiguilles when over 60 years of age, and at the age of 53 writes of :—
“an extremely pleasant little Alpine campaign, made in 1900, viz. the eastern ridge of the Finsteraarhorn. We failed to cross Mont Blanc, though we reached the Vallot Hut, over 14,000 feet, wind, wind, a gale. We crossed the Cols du Chardonnet and Fenêtre de Saleinaz, climbed Mont Velan, a glorious view, crossed the Grand Combin, a magnificent expedition, crossed Hohberg Pass from Binn to Fora Falls and walked down Formazza-thal, most beautiful, and at the same time the wildest I have ever seen, and wound up by crossing the New Weiss-Thor from Macucagna to Zermatt. Not an heroic campaign by any means, and yet a most charming one.”
And with this romp over the Alps we close this quite inadequate selection from Slingsby’s letters.
It will have revealed something of his infectious enthusiasm his modesty, humour, and above all his paternal anxiety for the good name of the Club and its Journal.
The Rev. W.A.B. Coolidge was the stormy petrel of Alpine literature. With an encyclopaedic knowledge of Alpine history and travel, he regarded these subjects as his own special preserve, and any intruder was apt to be regarded with suspicion, if not downright hostility. He was an indefatigable correspondent, and this substantial bundle of letters and cards can only be a small part of the amount he penned to mountaineers and writers all over the world. The bulk of his letters are now housed in the Zentral Bibliothek, Zürich.
Coolidge had an inexhaustible curiosity for all matters relating to the Alps, going through every book on the subject with a small tooth comb, and woe betide any writer who made a mistake.
He had a positive genuis for picking a quarrel, and must at one time or another have engaged almost every prominent mountaineer of his time, or at least, those rash enough to commit themselves in print. But in those days men were as doughty in controversy as in climbing. They asked for no quarter and gave none. Nevertheless, Coolidge was a giant in Alpine literature, and by no means a minor figure in its climbing. Slingsby said he was “an extraordinary combination of grit and — well — say sand,”
Coolidge’s first letter to Yorkshire was written to Slingsby from Oxford begging a copy of the 11th (1865) edition of Murray’s Switzerland, which he had noticed was in the Club Library.
The remainder of his letters, to Gray, were written from his Chalet Montana, Grindelwald.
Writing on the occasion of Gray’s first visit to the Alps, he says
“I quite agree with you that under the circumstances the choice of the Maderanertal was a good one, but I cannot help regretting that you began at once with rock climbs. These can be had in the Lakes, but it is the snow scenery of the Alps that can be had nowhere else. I know that only rock-climbing is now fashionable, but to an old fashioned person like myself that is a deadly heresy, and I should deny the title of mountaineers to many “clamberers” of the present day, and all this scrambling in the British Isles does not commend itself to me as a form of mountaineering.”
Also
“I deny further that the qualities required for cave hunting in any way resemble those required in mountaineering, otherwise miners would be the best mountaineers. I can understand that cave-hunting is very fascinating, but it does annoy me to see it treated (as in the Encycl. of Sport) as a form of mountaineering. Mattel, for instance, the apostle of cave-hunting, has done very little in the Alps.”
Leaving this dangerous ground, or should one say underground, for something of local interest, we read —
“I used to know Mr. Kitson well in the early seventies when he climbed and it may interest you to know that my ice-axe for 20 years odd, that which made all my great ascents, was a present from him, and was made at the Airedale Foundry.”
Several quite harmless individuals must have been hit and injured in a fusillade fired off on January 22nd, 1898.
” I was amused by Conways’ article but disagree with much of it, while its statements are often inaccurate. But who can A.C.C. be? His bibliography is laughable, many omissions and many mistakes, while Mummery’s dreadful book is mentioned twice over. But it is harmless compared to his glossary, hardly a statement in which is right, the definitions being terrible. It is worse than that in the Badminton vol., and more one can hardly say. Gribble’s book is very bad, and largely a shameless crib from my writings, of which practically no acknowledgement is made. But it is not so bad as Mathew’s Mont Blanc book, one of the poorest in the whole range of Alpine literature. Mosso’s work, too, irritated me by it pretentiousness.”
After this massacre, Coolidge’s naive confession,
“But I fear I am a hard critic”
seems just a little unnecessary. The shade of that arch-heretic, Owen Glynne Jones, must have winced when the following unsympathetic comment on the fatal Dent Blanche accident reached it,
“I hope someone will have the courage to speak up about the O.G. Jones folly and madness. It was proverbial amongst the guides, and the end was foreseen long ago.”
Coolidge touches on his quarrel with Whymper and the Alpine Club in a letter of December, 1900.
“I am in very bad odour with the English A.C., for last year I ventured, in my “Life of Almer,” to state that he (Almer) had told me in 1871 that he never made a leap of the kind shown in Whymper’s picture. Mistranslations and many false testimonies have been hurled at me, so a year ago I withdrew from the English A.C. altogether, and also from my share in the Ball revision.”
He cannot resist the opportunity for a little more denunciation of the heretics :—
“The St. Nicholas Gabelhorn was only scaled by “unfair” methods, ropes and ladders ; it is a very small point. I entirely agree with you in your opinion as to the disgrace brought on Alpine climbing by the antics of a small band of men who are simply trying hard to see how near they can come to breaking their necks by doing foolish small pinnacles of no interest save as greased poles.”
One seems to hear a faint echo of Ruskin’s thunder in this last sentence.
Certainly the largest of the bees buzzing in Coolidge’s bonnet, after the rock climbers, was the feebleness of other Alpine scribes, and it zooms around time after time in almost every letter. For example
“Mason’s novel “Running Water” has many Alpine mistakes. F. Harrison’s book, from the High Alps point of view, is utter trash, Larden’s Guide is incredibly badly edited, though it has good stuff in it.” and so on.
Edward Whymper, whose name will be for ever associated with the Matterhorn, was our first Honorary Member, elected in 1893, and the first of a distinguished roll. His letter of acceptance is now hanging in the Club library, and we have in addition three letters, comprising part of some correspondence he had with Thomas Gray regarding the reviewing of A.W. Moore’s classic “The Alps in 1864.”
It occurred to Gray that it would be appropriate for one of Moore’s surviving companions to review the book for the Journal. He wrote first to Whymper, who declined, explaining that he had just returned from Canada, and had much work awaiting him.
He suggested, however, that Horace Walker, who had spent more time than anyone else with Moore on the tour of 1864, would be the right man. Walker, unfortunately, declined without giving any other reason except that it was quite impossible for him to consider such a thing.
Walker was a man of quiet, retiring disposition. When, for instance, he lectured to the Club, he did not, like others, demand twenty-five copies of the lecture for his own use, but wrote to Gray,
“I now with reluctance, enclose you the manuscript of my lecture. It had to be slightly altered, as it could hardly be printed as I delivered it.
I am not without hope that when you come to read it over in cold blood you will pronounce it unfit for your Journal. I am not in any way accustomed to writing, and this is a mere compilation with nothing original in it, so that you will not in the least hurt my feelings if you reject it with thanks.
Such modesty is refreshingly rare, but still it is a great pity that Walker had not the gift or inclination for writing. A book as memorable as Moore’s or Whymper’s could have been compiled from the combined adventures of the Walker family, Francis the father, Horace the son, and Lucy the daughter, the first lady to stand on the summit of the Matterhorn.
Later, after Walker’s death in 1908, Gray again wrote to Whymper requesting him to write an obituary for the Journal. Whymper replied. :—
“I would willingly give you something of the nature of an obituary notice of Horace Walker if I could. But the fact is that I only was with him once in the Alps (in 1864) and I have already said whatever there is to be said. After that we met only occasionally, and I have scarcely any information about him. Pilkington, from his article in the last A.J. evidently knows much more about him. A great part of what he says is news to me ! Nevertheless I reckoned Horace Walker amongst my friends, for if I had felt in need of assistance I could have relied on him. He was always the same, in storm and in sunshine, and this equability of demeanour from first to last, combined with his other estimable qualities made him a man to be esteemed.”
Then, in another letter a few months later, Whymper wrote,
“I am sorry that you are unable to find a biographer for Horace Walker. A.W. Moore, if he were alive would no doubt be able to tell you much more about him, as they frequently travelled together ; but, as Moore has departed to join the angelic host, I am unable to suggest how you can address him.
In this fix I mention that Miss Lucy Walker of Liverpool is the most likely living person to be able to put you upon a competent biographer.”
There are several letters over such names as C.E. Mathews, Harold Raeburn, Haskett-Smith, Winthrop Young and J.M. Robinson, but not containing any material of great interest.
There is, however, a rather striking note from the hand of that prince of rock climbers, C.D. Frankland. This is incomplete, written in pencil, apparently from somewhere in France during the First World War. It is for his daughter on her fifteenth birthday. He writes :
“I am glad that you enjoy the rain. I have no use for softies. You are fortunate in having strong limbs, plenty of pluck, a very willing temperament. These advantages you have inherited from your Mother will stand you in good stead both in games and in the gymnasium. You know I have a failing for physical exercise. I have perhaps spent too much time, money and energy, for instance, upon rock-climbing, but I cannot even now make myself regret it. I love the fresh air, the vigorous trudge up a lofty slope, the exhilarating plunge down again, and more still do I enjoy the extremely selfish pleasure of a struggle up a lofty crag by a difficult and exposed course. All these failings make me rejoice as I read your lively descriptions of the country-side.’
I shall conclude this short survey by coming a little nearer to our own time and looking at a few letters from a mountaineer whose name is one of the most illustrious in the membership of the Yorkshire Ramblers Club, Frank Smythe. His tragically early death at the age of 49 robbed both our Club and British mountaineering of one of their most distinguished exponents.
The letters, written to E.E. Roberts, are typical of the man, vivid and packed with fresh observation. They are, however, too long to quote in full and brief excerpts will have to suffice.
The first was sent from Italy during his service there in 1944 with the C.M.F. After mentioning a visit to the Castellano caves, and, sometime after, the shaking he received from the bursting of a German 105 mm. shell five yards away from his jeep, he goes on,
“Up to last summer I was C.O. of a Commando School of Mountain Warfare, as you may remember. We moved from Braemar to Wales and did courses in rock-climbing. I was glad to find that at 44 years of age I was able to lead severes and go alone quite happily up places like the Terrace Wall Variant. Then I went to Canada and U.S.A. as member of a Military Mission though still in the R.A.F. as a result of which I got the job of Commandant of a Mountain Warfare Training Team … I suppose I travelled some 40,000 miles in N. America. My H.Q. was at Jaspar, Alberta, and there we trained — a magnificent country as you know. We lived largely in tents, snowholes, bush bivouacs, and igloos through the Canadian winter. But 40°F. dry cold is far preferable to the horrible damp cold of Scotland in winter. We had perfect powder snow and ski-ing like Davos and the Arlberg rolled into one, with peaks up to 12,000 ft. climbed . . . The Americans claim to have discovered a peak higher than Everest in the Amne Machin range on the borders of China and Tibet, so Bill House of the American A.C. and I have fixed a joint show as soon as possible after the war … It would really be rather humourous if Everest is not No. 1, but we shall use aircraft for a recce.”
Then from a letter of 9th November, 1946
“It has been a magnificent year. First I spent two months in Switzerland. The weather was shocking for five weeks, I’ve never seen so much snow, 8-10 feet deep in the upper Rhone Valley at the end of March, but the last three weeks were superb. Belaieff (a new A.C.) and I did the Pennine traverse on ski. Zermatt, Cima di Jazzi, Bétempts. Schwarzthor, Breithorn, Theodule, Staffelalp, Schönbühl, Col de Valpelline, Mont Brulé, to Arolla (descended from Col de Mont Brulé to Arolla in half an hour!), Cabane Val des Dix, La Luette, Rosa Blanche, Verbier.”
Writing to Roberts in January, 1948, Smythe apologises for a lapse in correspondence and continues,
“Two days after landing in England from Canada I set off on a lecture tour which lasted until Christmas, and I am still engaged in answering the six months Matterhorn of correspondence which accumulated whilst we were in Canada. With luck I shall be down to the Hornli next week with a Holland-Speaker rate of descent.”
“Last year’s show when we flew into the Lloyd George range in .N.E. British Columbia was most entertaining even though the mountains weren’t very difficult, as I’ve never before been in the midst of 25,000 sq. miles of completely unexplored, unmapped country with not even local natives present. Apart from that I had some good climbing in the Rockies including several first ascents, among them a rock peak near Jasper which turned out to be one of the finest rock climbs in the Rockies. Noel and I and a young American got up after two previous shows had failed …”
The impression that remains with one after a reading of these letters is that the early climbers were, I will not say more enthusiastic about their pastime, but much more vocal and eloquent about it than we are today.
They gave much more expression to their likes and dislikes of both persons and places. This, naturally, often led to trouble, but did fend off stagnation. Further, these men were conscious of being a small and rather exclusive group in society at large, and were therefore always concerned to maintain thestandards of that group.
Personalities often appear in these letters, but always on points of what one might call mountaineering ethics. Neither fools nor humbugs were suffered gladly, but a love of the mountains and the wild places of nature, with a sense of humility in their presence, was a sure passport to fellowship.
Good letter writing is certainly a dying art. We have neither the time nor the patience to rhapsodise in detail about our adventures. A postcard carrying the briefest of messages is deemed sufficient.
This is a great pity, for it is in a holiday letter to a friend, often written with a glow of fresh air still on the writer’s cheek, that one catches the true spirit.
In conclusion, much has necessarily had to be omitted from this brief selection, but this article will not have been written in vain if interest has been aroused, and members are impelled to call at the Club Library and read the whole collection for themselves.
As Mr. Squeers said in another connection, “Here’s richness ” !
1. Web Edit: If you don’t know the story Whymper drew a picture depicting Almer making a daring jump on the Barre des Ecrins which Coolridge questioned. Walt Unsworth covers it on page 155 of the Alpine Journal 2002
