Tom Proctor

Also known as Clark and The Hydraulic Man

Quick Info

From United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Date of birth 1st Sep 1947
Date of death 9th Sep 2001
Age 54 years old
Gender Male
Climbing
Hardest Boulder (Worked) 7A
Hardest Sport (Worked) 7a+
Hardest Trad (Worked) E5
Hardest Trad (Onsight) E5
Notable Partnerships
Geoff Birtles
John Kirk

An influential climber in the UKs Peak District throughout the 1960s and 70s.

I climbed solo for the first year because I had no one to climb with, I didn't know anybody. I treated it like a job, I'd go out at 8 O’clock in the morning and take my sandwiches, climb to about 12, eat my lunch and then climb to about 4 O'clock and then go home. I did about 4,000 foot of solo in a day and that was every week. 1 went about 38-39 weeks on the trot around Birchens, finding new bits to do and treating it as a bit like a workout. [4]

Tom once climbed "157 routes, mostly hard" [3] in a day on Stanage.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2001/09/tom_proctor_dies-1249

[2] On The Edge, Issue 112 page 12

[3] Alan Rouse in Two's a Crowd, Mountain issue 21, page 28

[4] The Power of Climbing (1991), page 35

Contributors
69 contributions since 25th October 2021.
TdG
23 contributions since 8th September 2025.

Quick Info

From United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Date of birth 1st Sep 1947
Date of death 9th Sep 2001
Age 54 years old
Gender Male
Climbing
Hardest Boulder (Worked) 7A
Hardest Sport (Worked) 7a+
Hardest Trad (Worked) E5
Hardest Trad (Onsight) E5
Notable Partnerships
Geoff Birtles
John Kirk

An influential climber in the UKs Peak District throughout the 1960s and 70s.

I climbed solo for the first year because I had no one to climb with, I didn't know anybody. I treated it like a job, I'd go out at 8 O’clock in the morning and take my sandwiches, climb to about 12, eat my lunch and then climb to about 4 O'clock and then go home. I did about 4,000 foot of solo in a day and that was every week. 1 went about 38-39 weeks on the trot around Birchens, finding new bits to do and treating it as a bit like a workout. [4]

Tom once climbed "157 routes, mostly hard" [3] in a day on Stanage.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2001/09/tom_proctor_dies-1249

[2] On The Edge, Issue 112 page 12

[3] Alan Rouse in Two's a Crowd, Mountain issue 21, page 28

[4] The Power of Climbing (1991), page 35

Contributors
69 contributions since 25th October 2021.
TdG
23 contributions since 8th September 2025.

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