Intimations of Mortality from the Collections of Second Childhood.

Yes, I know, it's a convoluted title but I just couldn't resist it and it's quite apposite.

I'm 67: fit, active, lucid(ish), not quite as strong as I was but still climbing to Grade 5 (HVS in proper terms) and doing most of the things I was doing in my teens and twenties. Last winter I had the new and uncomfortable feeling of being short of breath while leading one of my Gawain in the Landscape walks. In fact I had to stop talking going up an incline: a horrible experience. Another more serious bout of breathlessness and pounding chest on a cycle ride led me into the wonderful ministrations of the NHS. My GP treated it very seriously, gave me a cocktail of keeping alive drugs, arranged ECG, X-ray and blood tests and then sent me to the cardiac clinic where I was investigated. The outcome of various diagnostics was that I had three constrictions in my coronary arteries which are going to be treated with titanium mesh strengtheners.

Although I know I'm not immortal this has jolted me. Dad died of cancer when he was 65. The six weeks between diagnosis and death was a master class in bravery. All through my life he told me that he wanted to have his ashes scattered from the back of a motorbike around the TT circuit in the Isle of Man. On one of our last meetings he looked me in the eye and said "I'm serious you know". "What, Dad?" " You know bloody well what I mean!" and mimed a twist grip throttle. Yes, I knew he was serious because he rarely swore and as with most non swearers, he used it with precision. He accepted his death with dignity, no little humour and I was privileged to be with him when he slipped away. I use the term accurately. It was like untying the painter of a boat moored on a calm lake and it will drift slowly out into that lake. Death itself doesn't bother me anything like it used to before I witnessed it, pain management has become compassionately precise and when all else is said and done, I've had a very fortunate and full life. One of my great joys has been seeing Harvey and Caitlin turn into beautiful and caring young adults with equally beautiful and caring friends. Both of them join me in the local climbing centre Highball in Norwich and today Caitlin did a climb at a higher technical grade than I climb at.

It was beautiful to watch and very moving because it is how things should be. Our young people should be surpassing us, they should be confident enough to protest against the injustices and the stupidities they see in the world. They should widen their horizons to become part of the world not just our parochial bit. And how wonderful is it that so many teens do so? It's part of that timey wimey thing I suppose.

So, where do the "collections" come in I hear you ask. Well, over the last few months I've been gradually replacing my climbing rack. All those nuts, slings, harnesses, ropes, karabiners, belay devices that I sold or gave away all those years ago when I thought I'd never climb again. In a very Gerard Manley Hopkins way they look great, and above all they ring and rattle beautifully too. We're planning a trip to the Peak District later in the year when we can start some proper (more adventurous) climbing. The gear, tackle and trim don't aid our climbing, they are for protection against hitting the ground. Falling is permitted these days. When I started way back in the sixties the dictum was that the leader never fell because severe injury or death would follow even on the relatively short Gritstone routes we were doing. Now the development of artificial chockstones, camming devices, eccentric wedges, elastic ropes and comfortable harnesses has meant that routes considered unthinkably dangerous a few years ago are climbed by relative beginners. This is good, this is how it should be. Progress can be a dangerous concept which I'll explore in another blog, but as you know, I firmly believe that doing difficult and scary, exposed things should be a fundamental part of life. As I get older and I can see the end approaching, I see that things that once were easy become harder. I find certain hills around Cromer getting slower to cycle up and eventually I suppose that walking upstairs may become as difficult for me as a grade 5 climb is now. My dad, bless him, found breathing to be too difficult right at the very end of his life. Mortality is becoming for me a reality which must be embraced as a friend rather than scorned and ignored as an enemy. I was taught by an expert!