Firstly I would like to thank Maggie Body, my editor, for doing such a fine job with the text. I am also indebted to John Middendorf for honouring me with his Foreword and to Andy Parkin for his wonderfully enigmatic drawings which embellish the text. Then I must thank Harold Wooley for teaching me how to climb and ruining my academic career. I am deeply indebted to Gill Kent for having so much faith in my writing for so long. Thanks too to Gwion Hughes, George Smith, Noel Craine, Jim Perrin and all my other mates for their reading and criticism and Greg Rimmer for his work with my manuscript. The photographic spreads have been strengthened by the contributions of Tony Kay, Bill Hatcher, Iwan Jones, Simon Yates, Ben Wintringham, Ken Wilson, Sean Smith and Alun Hughes, to whom I owe thanks. My earnest thanks must go to Marko Prezelj for his work on the cover photo too which was lost a long time since.
A thank you also to: the MEF and the BMC without whose financial help some of our trips might not have happened; Ben Lyon for his continued support for my pie in the sky schemes; Glenn Robbins for saving my life and Olly Saunders for finding us; Nick Kekus for saving it again and Robert Hester and Nick Burring for coping so well on that awful day; Lochaber and Valley Rescue Teams and the Holyhead lifeboat crew for doing their jobs so faultlessly; all my friends I have lived and climbed with and who have given me the raw material to write about in this book. I would also like to show my gratitude to my parents for letting me be what I wanted to be. Finally, thank you Celia Bull for the love, the laughs, the tears, the support – for sharing the adventure. Cheers Ed, Philip and Teo. My book is dedicated to those times.
This new edition is also dedicated to my father for teaching me the meaning of freedom.