This was all many years ago...

Dear Andrew

I had originally thought that I would buy you a farewell card but such cards are often trite and seldom convey the true message of the sender. Instead I sat down to write these lines that I hope have captured a few of the memories of your time in this country.

I remember the first time you ever touched rock. It was Beginners Meet at Monteseel and you followed Reformatory facing out from the rock on the crux! I am sure later that afternoon I would have led Hallucination; it’s what I always did.

Hallucination… It is hard now to imagine just what that route meant to us back then – in the centre of the arena yet before it became a trade route for everyone ticking off another route in checklist to stardom. Do you remember all the silly things we said at various times while doing the route? “Not only am I unfit, I’m also useless.” Didn’t you keep a record of how many times you did the route? I guess my ascents must be in the hundreds. So much personal history in forty feet of rock.

I feel like Villon and asking, “Where are the great days of flying up to the Transvaal for a long weekend?” (Of course Villon didn’t fly anywhere, and was longing for snow). Waiting in the lounge for the midnight flight, sipping Cointreau, opening a new route in Mhlabatini, flying back to Durban late on Sunday night and then feeling like death the next day. But fortunately there would be the wall to go to that afternoon, anxiously checking the time as it neared a quarter to four. Doing the difficult traverse, the desperate mantels, chatting to “the starlet”, laughing with Craig as he lounged on the grass in his disco slippers before cranking out some hideously think move and then climbing on into the dark with the floodlights.

Ultimately, of course, it was Monteseel that was our real home. It was fresh and exciting still and grotty and scruffy as well. There were nights at the hut when nobody else was there and we were bored to tears, forced to go down to the bar at Thousand Hills Hotel to pass the evening. Others times, though, the hut was so crowded that sleep was impossible – snoring climbers, the dripping tap and rattling door. Noisy parties next door, and a local band playing Lover Boy. The filthy shower, dirty sink, collapsing furniture and beers mugs all covered in candle wax. Reading two year old time magazines while hiding from the midday sun. Arriving at the hut on a Saturday morning and rushing to check the notice board for new routes, to see the comments scrawled in the hut book and in the new route book. Opening a new line and proudly (arrogantly?) writing it up, deliberating over the route name. That weekend a group of physics students came to watch Halley’s Comet and braai and made such a racket. And climbing. Leading Rigor Mortis with you barely consenting to belay in hole – I don’t suppose that you heard that the entire pillar fell down some years later? Warchild, Edge of Eternity. Soloing Pinup, following routes in running shoes and soloing down Pilgrims Progress to get to the start of Wild Sky. What stories and memories those routes hold for us lucky enough to have been climbing then.

What happens to that special feeling that climbing gave us? Does it last, or disappear with our youth? No, it’s still there. When the time and conditions are right, it all comes flooding back, just like it did on Guy Fawkes Day in 1988 when I opened Lonely Walls. I was glad it was you belaying me that day. It was right. The old team, putting it together one last time. Leading out on those grey walls at Winston Park when the wind is blowing and the sky grey and heavy with impending rain is a memory that will stay with me forever. I hope you remember that day and remember that it’s all worthwhile. The hours of effort, the training, injuries, all of it is worth it for just one day on a route like that. I haven’t been back since that day and doubt I ever shall. There is a big toll plaza below the crag now on a new freeway, and the route was bolted sometime later. I suppose that might have been a good idea, because now other people can make their own types of memories there.

Andrew, you helped my climbing so much. You belayed me on so many routes, you seemed to believe in me and helped me to believe in myself. Shadows in the Rain, Wish You Were Here, Glory Road; the list could go on and on. We had our ups and downs, but with the passing of time that all seems so meaningless. And now you are leaving this country for good and I don’t suppose I shall see you again. I shall always value the memories of the times you shared with me. I hope you don’t forget either.