Andy Kirkpatrick - Unknown pleasures : collected writing on life, death, climbing and everything in between

COLLECTED WRITING ON LIFE, DEATH, CLIMBING AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

KIRKPATRICK

UNKNOWN

PLEASURES

www.v-publishing.co.uk

Who can break from the snares of the world

HAN-SHAN

When the singer Freddie Mercury was dying of Aids he told those in charge of his legacy to do what they wanted with his music, his only wish being dont make me boring.

Unknown Pleasures is a collection of writing covering a broad range of subjects, from Antarctic expeditions to Steven Seagal, and big-wall solos to suicide. Covering life and death and all the stuff in between, this is much more than a straight climbing book. Within these pages are stories that will terrify, stories that will make you chuckle, and stories that will make you confused, angry or even make you cry. Within this book there will be words to love and words to hate, but I promise you, none of them will be boring.

I sit in Las Vegas, the air conditioning making me shiver, typing away backwards and forwards, type and delete trying to write an introduction that I might actually take the time to read for a book of my words.

It seems funny to have such a book, with my words printed inside it, and its with no false modesty that I say I dont really see myself as a writer this writing stuff nothing to do with me. If I was to come up with a reason for this embarrassment of inadequacy it would be that writing has always been such a struggle, from the moment I started school, to now as I sit and shiver. Theres no way I can claim such a title as writer. To find something so difficult robs you of any feeling of mastery, mastery being a requirement for such a book as this, my greatest hits. And so instead of being a writer I see myself as being something else: part thief and part connector of discordant events, mining the past. Oh and last lines, Im good at last lines.

First to the thievery.

The words in this book were most often not really freely given but taken, sometimes stolen against the wills of the characters described, from people who had no clue that my writers brain was casing away everything said and done and experienced. The more you can steal the better; the stuff people want left out is more often than not the only stuff to put in.

Having gone through so much past writing looking for the good stuff for this book, I would also add myself to the list of injured parties, my own life picked through for nuggets that could be forged into something of value to the reader no thought to the crime in it. All that mattered was the words, even ones that did me harm.

There is also some criminal boldness needed to write stories that people want to read: a little raw, a bit edgy, car-crash uncomfortable things that make people read through their fingers, things theyve not quite read before, things they want to read but didnt know it. Im often asked if those who Ive written about are still alive (yes, they are), or if others mind so honest a sharing (often not), or if I share too much (yes, I do). All that really matters is that the words are read, criminal or not. As Ive said, Im not a writer of skill, but a thief have been so long before the words and that urge to read what I write is often just the thrill of being in on the job.

As for connections, this really seems to be what Im good at and has very little to do with the art of writing, of planning and structure and knowing your beginning, middle and end. I was once diagnosed as being extremely dyslexic, regarded as a problem at the time an excuse. But I soon saw it as a gift, allowing me to deconstruct and rebuild complex things, a story nothing but a pattern of words and meanings that can be pulled apart. These stories I tell are very often confused and complex, going here and there, which some wrongly assume to be designed that way, that in the madness there is deeper meaning and intellect. There is not, I just start writing and see where my easily distracted brain takes me oh look, a squirrel but youre welcome to extract a higher meaning if you wish. This distraction is also tied to my adventurous spirit, in that I dont want certainty, to know what comes next, what lies around every corner, only the certainty that the next paragraph has the potential to be different to this one and unexpected.

Once upon a time and long enough ago to share and not face prosecution, I was more than a word thief.

My thievery did not involve diamonds, bars of gold, or fancy sports cars, but cheese. Maybe you can go to prison for such a crime, or be sent to hell, but in my defence, this was the cheapest of cheese mlud, not the good stuff that stinks out your house. It was hardly cheese at all, more soft orange rubber, showing that at least back then I felt some shame. The wrapper of this ill-gotten gain was labelled Happy Shopper, Cheddar, strong, strong cheese the only one worth the risk of being caught for after all, life is too short for mild.

Happy Shopper was a popular brand back then in the 1990s, each item like a little Red Cross parcel to the cash-strapped: single mums, men who lived alone, the elderly, the downtrodden, people spread as thin as can be on their small slice of life. And so such offerings were true to their word, bringing happiness to shoppers with an affordable bounty of cheap cuts and slices and measures, sold in corner shops and Asian supermarkets everywhere.

Back in those days my income was about twenty-four pounds a week I was spread thin enough to be transparent, on the dole like almost everyone else my age. It was a substance I had to stand in line once a fortnight to receive, stand in line and recite my National Insurance number and then sign on.

Standing in line has a calming effect on animals, like cattle and human beings, some order to the chaotic scramble that is a life, the line that must hold for the sake of civilisation, but often without considering its possible abattoir end. When we humans stand in line we stand in line to demonstrate for fairness, in the belief that although slow you will be in some way rewarded for your patience and civic conformity, as well as the solidarity of the tut and grumble at those that push in, or who dont wait their turn (Italians).

Everyone who worked for the DHSS, the SS, where I stood in line waiting to sign on, looked like a teacher: stern, detached, disinterested, just clocking their days away, sheepdogs to us queuing sheep. Next as good as a bark, the security guard standing ready to nip the unruly. The best thing about them looking like teachers was they created a seamless join between school and unemployment made you realise you were as loved by the state as a paper clip. I guess it was around this time, facing the back of some fellow unfortunate, that the words in this book began to form, like a grain of sand within an oyster, some small thought that there must be more to life than this even if it was via the one thing I knew for certain I was crap at.

Once signed on, and with no bank account, your giro would be taken to the post office, and another line. The money counted out by someone else who looked like a teacher, no chit-chat or how are things? , even though there was no shame in it really, that money given, like medicine, the hope being to keep the patient alive until the world got better. At the post office counter the money would be doled out, meant to last until the lines beckoned again.

Money was put aside for gas, electricity, water and food, and small loans of a pound or two paid back. Rent was taken care of by the fact that no one in the house paid rent, the owner of the flat seemingly disappeared. Drink and drugs would have been a nice distraction in those days, but not on such a tight budget, drugs only really affordable if you started dealing, any profit to be had squandered in a hazy and wasteful distraction. The only real frivolity was going out, pound-shop clubs, where dancing was free and other peoples dregs could easily be drunk. On tiny dance floors with low ceilings, to the beat of Iggy Pop or the Stone Roses, you forgot just who or what you were. Bodies brushed over crunching glass, the drumming moment your own little movie as the strobe bulb pulsed through the choking smoke machine. Life was good in the dark until the lights came on and you realised where you were, other peoples sweat dripping down on you from the ceiling. Again, that small piece of sand spun deep within, the urge to somehow make a reality which worked with the lights on.