Douglas - Just another mountain: a memoir

Written in loving memory of my mother and grandparents, and for my two sons, Marcus and Leon

M y own love of mountains started in the summer of 1951, at the age of sixteen, when I climbed a hill in Blackrock, a suburb of Dublin. It was certainly no mountain but it sparked a passion that led me to devote my life to climbing all over the world. I have faced the most forbidding mountains on earth and have always relished the challenge, even climbing the Old Man of Hoy, the tallest sea stack in the British Isles, to mark my eightieth birthday.

It is an experience that remains exhilarating no matter where we are in the world, or what stage of life we are in: the physical challenges of endurance; the thrill of the risks taken; the elation of reaching the summit; the joy of immersion in the rugged scenery, all of your senses in tune with the landscape youre walking through.

The mountains are also a place to seek solace. There have been many times in my life when I have found peace in such solitary and unforgiving surrounds. In times of trouble and grief, walking has seen me through.

It is for these reasons that I have so enjoyed reading of Sarah Jane Douglass experiences, which have inspired her to find strength in the face of lifes challenges. There is something universal at the heart of this book something we can all understand, not just those of us who have grown to love the mountains. That immersing ourselves in wild landscapes can heal, motivate and inspire us is something that is beyond doubt.

Sarahs story shows that this is open to everyone; anyone can decide to go out and just start walking. To pit oneself against a summit even a small one, in a suburb of Dublin can be the beginning of a lifetime of adventure and discovery. I hope that this book will inspire others to do the same.

Sir Chris Bonington
2019

L oads of people get horrible diagnoses all the time, so really it isnt anything special or extraordinary that I found myself with membership to the cancer club. To be honest Id been expecting it, but the news still came as a swift kick to the balls. The hardest thing to get my head around was the fact that twenty years earlier Id held my own mums hand when breast cancer stole her life from mine. It had taken me most of my adulthood to recover from her loss.

I was twenty-four when my mum died, and it felt far too young. I wasnt ready for it in my mind I was still a child, her child, and I needed her. But she was gone for ever. Lost without her, I spent years lurching from one distraction to the next: drinking too much, dabbling with drugs, loveless sex with too many men, motherhood. I got into trouble with the police. I wound up in a volatile marriage. Without her support, and with the subsequent deaths of my grandparents, it seemed there was no one who cared. I had my two sons, but sometimes it felt like a struggle just to keep breathing: I was at odds with the world and everything in it.

But Id made a promise to Mum that I wouldnt give up, and the hope within, which at times seemed to have died, somehow kept flickering.

I remembered and turned to a world Id once loved, a world right on my doorstep: mountains.

Id grown up in the Scottish Highlands, so mountains had always been a big part of my life. Mum and I would often walk together, and many of my favourite memories of her are from those times. After her death, I continued to go on my own for long walks on the beach and along the river it helped me to feel closer to her. But it was when my life started to spiral out of control that I really started to discover a passion for the outdoors. At first I started setting out for places wilder and further afield, but I soon realised I needed more of an outlet, time to escape, and eventually I sought out high tops. Proximity to nature was soothing; I felt at peace and perfectly secure in the rugged environment. The more I ventured out, the more I wanted to do and the higher I wanted to go.

I didnt know it at first, but hillwalking would be the key to turning things around. As soon as I find myself on top of a mountain I am filled with the joy of life, even more so if the summit has been hard won through tricky terrain or challenging weather. Climbing all of Scotlands highest peaks, pitting myself against nature, forced me to face up to my troubles. It reconnected me to my mum and, in getting to the marrow of my experiences, it helped me move past grief. And eventually it would help me deal with cancer. Faced with my diagnosis, there was only one thing I could do, the thing Id come to rely on so much these last few years. I had to put one foot in front of the other and just keep walking.

We are no other than a moving row

Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held

In Midnight by the Master of the Show

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, LXVIII

Meall a Bhuachaille The Shepherds Hill, April 2008

S nowflakes floated down from a heavy alabaster sky; beyond their dot-to-dot spaces Scots pines blurred in my vision. Delicate frozen patterns. I tried to catch flakes on my tongue, each unique in design and without permanency. A temporary structure, like us humans, I thought.

Id only been walking for ten minutes but my cheeks already felt flushed in the cold air. I cant believe theres so much snow! I said out loud, looking down at my feet. They felt warm inside the brown Brashers: they had been Mums boots but they belonged to me now. Mum had always said it wasnt good to wear other peoples shoes, something about feet moulding into the insoles and the leather. If theyd been anybody elses I wouldnt be wearing them, but they were hers. I guess I wanted to be close to her in whatever way I could.