Allan Austin

References

[1] https://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2020/11/allan-austin-interview.html

[2] Features in Lines of Flight @ 13:40 https://vimeo.com/88210220

[3] Features in Rock Athlete - New Summits @ 8:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdRfqD125-g

[4] Interview with Robin Nicholson in Yorkshire Gritstone Volume 1:

Straddling the era between the post-war climbers and the lycra-clad rock athletes of the 1970s, it was the round-faced, be-spectacled woolly-jumper wearing Allan Austin who ruled his Yorkshire gritstone roost in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Austin was signed up to a Yorkshire Mountaineering Club course by his mother after his National Service in Hong Kong and never looked back. It was there he learnt the basics and hooked up with regular future partner Brian Evans, initially repeating routes by Arthur Dolphin before striking out on his own new routing spree that left not only Yorkshire but also the Lakes and Wales with many hard classic routes.

At Almscliff Austin most famously added Western Front (E3 5c) and then a route Dolphin had top-roped but been unable to lead 17 years earlier, the mighty Wall of Horrors (E3 6a). In an era where protection and runners were often still non-existent or purely of psychological benefit Austin's gritstone feats in pushing well into the E grades are astonishing and his legacy of Yorkshire grit routes that remain coveted, hard-earned three-start ticks today is testament to that. And it wasn't just Yorkshire grit. Austin also spent a lot of time in the Lakes, adding the likes of Astra (E2 5c) and Gimmer String (El 5b).

Austin had no time for those he deemed liars and cheats and was a fierce opponent of those who claimed first ascents with over-use of pegs or sneaky bits of aid, (as some found out when their routes were controversially left out of guidebooks that Austin edited).

In an era before the training-obsessed gymnasts raised the trad climbing bar even higher in the 1970s, Austin was the last of a generation of hard men with an eye for bold, striking lines that called for a cool head 70 feet above runners as much as talent and technique.

What was it like when you first started climbing?

When we started there were just no runners. The VSs were never 'led' - they were soloed. We'd been climbing a couple of months and said 'right it's about time we did Frankland's (Green Crack),' because we knew there was a runner on it; a stone under the overhang. Oh, it were desperate. I laybacked the upper crack on my elbows. By God. I never did it again.

Who did you climb with?

I used to climb with Brian Evans and Eric 'Matey' Metcalfe, among others. I liked climbing with Matey. He was awkward and stubborn. Jennifer (girlfriend at the time and now wife) couldn't stand him. So when I was crippled (smashed my ankle in a fall at Hugencroft), I daren't let Matey loose on his own. I thought he's going to get up all these new routes that I haven't done. But I knew he didn't have transport (I had a van you see). So I thought, 'if I take him round in my van, with my walking stick on the accelerator (because I had my foot in plaster) with Jen as his second (and she hated it) then he won't be getting up any. It worked.

What did you look for in new routes?

The line. Don't forget all we knew were the lines. There weren't any gritstone walls were there? (They) were big lines. Ones you can see way before you get to the crag and you know they're going to be good routes; they can't be anything else. High Street (Ilkley) is a hell of a line isn't it?

Ever climb with Joe Brown, Whillans, etc? Was it competitive?

Later on I climbed with Joe. He's a difficult man to climb with. His style was not like anyone else's. He was much more flexible in his hips and he could get closer into a steep wall than anyone I ever saw. He seemed to be able to rest on vertical walls and sit on his heels. You could never copy the way he climbed when you were seconding. He wore out an awful lot of good seconds. He'd ruin your confidence.

Whillains climbed like everybody else but he was better than everybody else. Beautiful, smooth climber. You get the impression that "The Villain' is a hard nut. He was terrific I thought. I didn't climb a lot with many of these guys cos they climbed in different patch.

One day we'd heard about this big route at Froggatt and set off down to have a go. Well we fought this bloody crack and couldn't get up. We stood there panting and looking at it and throwing ourselves in turn at it and then this short guy came round the corner and it was Joe. He watched all this going on for about 2 or 3 hours and then said, 'I can't think it's so hard. What about getting a runner up there?' Well we couldn't get a runner. He picked this stone up and broke it with his hands and went up and pushed it in. He then soloed it so fast that Brian Fuller who were there with his camera couldn't get a photograph. It took another hour before we got up. Strewth.

We were just beginners then. About a year into climbing. Don and Joe had been climbing for about 8 or 9 years and they'd reached that smoothness that we didn't have. We were young thrusting climbers doing it on guts and stupidity and not much more.

Later though, someone would do a big new route and mention it to three or four people and then you make an effort to do it. We used to go out and 'so and so's done a big new route out the back of so and so on so and so cliff in Scotland,' and there's a vacant weekend, we'll go up and do it. So we went round and did 'em. Joe did a new route on Stanage so we went down and did his new route. They'd come up and do the same. But the routes up here we found were never the same. Almscliff was a foreign crag really. We decided it must need different techniques that we didn't realise, growing up here all the time. They used to come once to Almscliff and never come back. I think the crag being so rounded and bulging, they just didn't. Whereas we would go down and, for instance, do all routes above Severe on Stanage. Just work through 'em and it'd be the same on Froggatt. Joe's routes, everything, go through 'em all. Not immediately. And then if Joe did a new one, like his Cave Wall, we'd look in.

You know how hard a route is. The hard routes were big routes and what we meant by that were routes that you could get chopped on. I could number all the best climbers in Britain on two hands. They wouldn't be these gymnasts. There's always been these blokes who were brilliant gymnasts but not good climbers. They had an altitude limit. There's never been that many men who could make a hard move 80 feet out. Never. There probably isn't today. It were hard doing it. And of course it was worth it. What I did was balance the risk of what I was looking at against my judgement and ability. Now I think that's stupidity really. But all young men think that. You've got up this route that other folk are not getting up.

Did you do much bouldering?

Not much. I used to go round to Shipley Glen and I used to apologise. Nobody went. There's nothing there worth climbing. But it fits in with what today's people want to do so let's not knock it.

What did you think of the next generation of climbers that was coming through after you?

Syrett were a good climber. Well, how shall I put this? He wasn't an ace climber. Ken Wood, who climbed at the same time, was what I would call a great climber. But John (Syrett) needed sun on his back and a bare midriff and shorts up to here. But he had a fantastic stretch and was so gymnastic- given those conditions he was unmatched. He was terrific to watch.

Manson was good. When I saw Fred Zinnerman (Caley) I thought 'Heck, it's mind-blowing. I couldn't see how the hell he got up that?' I used to climb with him on the Leeds uni wall. I think they used to laugh at me. By the time I got to the wall I was well into my thirties. Much stiffer and I never had much finger strength. Soon there were a dozen of em, all throwing themselves at this wall, making problems up. They had a low-level traverse that was unbelievably difficult, a foot off the floor, shit. You used to get down and squeeze your balls into the wall and Manson could just....he was a really talented climber.

Pete Livesey, well, if you saw the guy climbing he was a good climber but there was always some jiggery pokery going on. He didn't need to. He was good enough.

What kind of gear and runners were you using at the time?

We reckoned we had better gear than they [the old blokes] had. We had line slings for instance. We used to carry pockets of stones, that type of thing. Nowadays you get little wires in. At that time you didn't get nuts. You put stones in and threaded them with a wire. Bloody strenuous. Took about 20 minutes per runner these things did.

Footwear? Well, we had PAs then. The others, don't forget, were climbing in rubbers. PAs were a bastard. I hadn't had pain like that before. The route which shocked us all was Bald Pate (Ilkley). When them lot did it they had no runners, no chiselled holds. At the far end of the traverse you've got that really hard crux and you stand on a thing about the size of 2 finger joints and it slopes a bit. Well we were in rubbers. There were no edges on rubbers so when it came to this route you had to edge it and so we sent off for PAs as you couldn't buy em over in this country. It made a big bloody difference. Instead of thinking 'I'm coming off,' you could actually stand on it. It dropped that grade. I can't tell you how much it dropped it just being able to edge it. It were amazing, it really was.

What do you remember about specific routes?

Just after I'd started climbing, a guy called Ernest Marshall told me about these three big Almscliff lines. We stood underneath and he said, 'hey, one day you'll get up that,' and it was a direct start to Great Western which became Western Front. And I thought, 'aye'. We then looked at the rest and I knew that one day we'd have to do this wall that Dolphin had described (The Wall of Horrors) and then there's the other one we used to call The Pocket (now The Big Greeny) where there's a big pocket in the wall left of Frankland's Green Crack.

When I first tried Western Front, I was knackered. I'd got up into the overhanging crack and I couldn't reach the next gap. I couldn't get back and that's when I fell off. We didn't have any runners in those days. I hit the boulder, somersaulted and my feet hit the other side of the wall (that's what the onlook- ers told me anyway). I was laid out unconscious on the floor. Nobody came to look at me. As I opened my eyes nobody said a bloody word. I was incensed. I said "can't you say something" and all I got was, 'we thought you were dead.' I was shaken up but we still carried on climbing that evening.

The Wall of Horrors had such a big reputation. The old men had given it some mystical 'oh this wall of horrors' and everyone expected it to be desperate from the start and we now know it's only five foot isn't it? When Syrett did it he'd got the American gear in. Chouinard's gear. Syrett was a terrific gritstoner. I would have liked to have seen him do it.

A while after we'd done the two (Western Front and The Wall of Horrors), I said to Matey we'll have a go at this (The Big Greeny) today. Out onto the wall I went and I got into this bloody pocket and thought I'd cracked it but I couldn't get up. Having got up there I were in a real pickle. I couldn't get bloody back because I didn't believe the runner I'd put in the crack would stop me before't floor and Matey were saying, 'don't fall off or if you do, make sure you go down the gap you don't want to swing back in'. Bloody hell, I were thinking. Anyway, I did manage to get back down but by God it was a fright.

This runner business at Almscliff were disastrous you know. You probably can't visualise it today but there weren't any runners on The Wall of Horrors for instance. On the entire North West face of Almscliff we knew where there were 3 runners; on that whole wall. Imagine that. One at the Great Western/ Crack of Doom flake; one at the Great Western pinnacle that sticks out and the other on Frankland's Green Crack. Just imagine it.

I can still picture the moves on these routes. It's amazing isn't it. I haven't climbed for 50 years.

What about the 1920s to 1940s?

In terms of the generation of Yorkshire climbers before me just think about Twin Cracks (HS 4b) at ilkley. Done before the First World War. We're talking about a really hard climb. I don't care what standard you climb at. Nobody walks up that.

You'd go down south and the hardest route that any of them lot ever did was Elliott's Unconquerable at Cratcliffe (HVS 5a, 1933). It's a hand jam, on a slab but the roof comes right down. It's a hard route but then look at the (Ilkley) quarry. Bloody Botterill's Crack (HVS 5a, 1920) done years earlier. We didn't give these old boys enough credit. We climbed all these old Yorkshire routes but everywhere else we went they were a lot easier.

As for Dolphin, we all regarded him as being a gentleman. You can't say more than that; honest, straightforward. Just think, Demon Wall (HVS 5a, 1940), with no runners. There weren't even any in my day and none came I don't recall even to the day I gave up climbing. An awful lot of the people that I was climbing with had never led it. That's impressive.

How do you feel about the climbing you see today?

It's not for me to pass an opinion. It's not my sport. I think had I been starting afresh that the thing that would have suited me would have been something like cave diving.

You used to climb in all weathers back then didn't you?

Yes, we never wasted a day. I once got 100 routes in at Ilkley after tea. I got there about seven o’clock and I got just under this 100 and I thought tomorrow I'll crack the hundred. So the next day I went back. It meant all the Hard VS's downwards really. That was the time I decided I wouldn't solo High Street but I did the others, Short Circuit and that sort of thing.

What do you think is the best new route you did?

People look at them and your reputation is limited to one or two climbs. How many routes do you think I did on grit? I did 400 new ones, plus 200 on limestone and 100 on what you'd call volcanic rock. Most people's production is like that. So when you think back out of all these routes and how many I've done that I'm really proud of, it's not that many. The best route I ever did was in Ireland in Donegal, a 550- foot HVS. Better than Centurion. Now gets three stars in the book. I made the only free ascent of White Slab, the only E4 that was climbed before 1960. Everybody else had lassooed the crucial pitch. It's E4 today that pitch. I did it in 1959.

And what about just on Yorkshire grit?

The big thing I aimed at because I'd looked at it for four years was The Wall of Horrors. I always hoped I might get a 10 year one. You know, one that wasn't repeated for 10 years. The Wall of Horrors was eight or nine I think. But when I think back, I think The Shelf (Crookrise) was a good one. Of course the Almscliff ones will be classics. Largely because Almscliff lines are so impressive. What else out of all those? There aren't many. Allan's Crack at Brimham? It's just an ordinary route isn't it?