Tell me about the hard headpoints from the 1980s.
What happened is, I was often at the crag on my own because I went to the crag all the time, and not everybody wanted to go climbing as much as me. I used to go all the time, whether it was rainy or not. I liked the crag. It’s where I enjoyed life. Before I did any of the other climbs, I tried all the climbs on the cliff — It’d take my time, and I’d do all the climbs on all the cliffs in the Peak District, so I’d climbed all the routes more or less in the Peak District on gritstone. [Some cliffs] were far flung, so I didn’t climb there, and also there were a few routes with long reaches that were a nightmare, so I gave them a wide berth. 

But the ones where I could really see what was gong on from the ground, I would climb onsight, things like Narcissus, One Step Beyond Direct, Mint 400, these all sort of 7b+/7c-ish things completely onsight, and you climb sort of like floppy sticky rubber and not really the best conditions, because you used to climb all the time, so sometimes you’d find yourself in the damp, and sometimes it’d be too bloody cold. But that’s what we did. You know, you didn’t have climbing walls, and had you had climbing walls, maybe I wouldn’t have learned as much. You know, to make the decision to not go to the climbing wall when you can go out on the crag doesn’t make so much sense.

The climbing walls were interesting for experimentation, but they weren’t very good for getting real power. So, that was the mixture of factors that enabled me to develop what I did. And the headpoints were purely, while you were at the crag you’d look at these other bits of rock that were dirty, and in order to see whether or not they were climbable you had to clean the holds in order to hang on, because they were so futuristic in 1984-85. These things didn’t have any holds on them. They didn’t have any protection, so they looked really barking mad. It would be like the equivalent now would be something quite dramatic – it would be like one of the arêtes above the Muir Wall onsight or something. 

How about Gaia?
At the beginning of ‘85 there was E7, and at the end of 86 I’d done three E8s and an E9. And other people as well did E8. I didn’t do the first E8. A guy called Nick Dixon did it. In comparison, his was E8-, and Gaia was a chunky, solid E8, and it remained so, And it also had a very hard move at the beginning and it had a powerful bit, and then a dangerous bit. Nick’s is an open scoop with small pebbles, just a very fragile, delicate, naughty, naughty slab route. Gaia is a boulder problem, which is very hard for me. At the time it was a proper sloper, you know, 60-degree sloper and a sidepull, and you have to swing off that for a hold. And in fact, I think Lisa Rands thought it was V9. You know, V9 in 1986 on a route was hard. It was harder than what was going on, on the limestone in a way. There was probably V10 on limestone, but it didn’t have a death route after it. And the top bit I couldn’t work on a rope, because of the nature of where it was, so I did that bit onsight. The top bit of Gaia was onsight. It was a mantle, and I’d sketched where I was going to put my foot. I’d had a really good look at it, and knew what the move was, and committed myself to that move, knowing from experience that that would make that much friction and all I could hold on. 

So, my basic style was not really to toprope the routes — it was to try them on abseil so I got all the moves, and then the last bit of unknown would be doing them on a link, when I led it. So, whether that’s easier or harder, I have no idea, but that’s how I did my routes. What I did it, I did them in sections, so I’d abseil down, do a move, do two more moves, grab the rope, clamber down the rope, jump into the rock, jump up on the rope and take some rope in, and then I’d try the next overlapping section. But what I hadn’t done was do the whole thing in a oner.