High Endeavours: The Life and Legend of Robin Smith [Paperback]

Robin Smith was one of the greatest British climbers of the pioneering 1950s and early 60s, who, unimaginably to those who knew him, fell to his death on a snow slope in the Pamirs before he'd reached his 24th birthday. Irrepressible, mischievous, brilliant and immensely talented, this book is a long-awaited tribute to this extraordinary young man.

I delighted in this new biography by Jimmy Cruikshank, one of Robin Smith's childhood friends. It vividly fleshed out the images left in my mind from the few tousleheaded photos I'd seen, and the published handful of essays which were monuments to his startlingly original, self-deprecating and wildly funny writing. The book evidently took years in the writing and is essentially an editorial work in which the recollections of many others are stitched together like a vividly colored patchwork quilt.

Most of Smith's critically acclaimed essays, anarchic and casual in style but (as the book explains) impeccably and deliberately crafted, are there; but they've all been published elsewhere. New, and of significant interest, are the personal recollections of those who knew him. For that reason this book is an important contribution to climbing history. On reflection, it seems extraordinary that no life of Smith has been compiled before. Perhaps that's because its subject had so many facets: any attempt to describe him in brief terms - including any summary in this review - would be bound to fail.

I knew Smith was a fearless and innovative climber. What I didn't know was that he had a brilliant mind, his genius in the abstruse field of mathematic logic impressing his Edinburgh University philosophy tutors to this day. While sitting impatiently in Grindelwald waiting for Dougal Haston to join him for an attempt on the North Face of the Eiger (Haston never showed up, or the pair would surely have made the first British ascent), he read Bertrand Russell for company. One colleague, Jimmy Gardiner, who played chess competitively, writes that he was hustled out of ten shillings by Smith who beat him at chess having claimed that he knew little of the game. Few climbers were aware that this untidy and seemingly shambolic young man possessed the sharpest academic mind, and fewer still that he had been admitted to study Philosophy at PhD level at London University.

Smith was almost universally liked, and fondly remembered, by everyone who knew him; though he had many infuriating traits which (see below) he seemed to cultivate deliberately. Unusually for teachers and professors when asked their recall of a student whom they briefly knew many decades later, each one clearly remembered not only his name, but his academic ability, strong personality, wit, irrepressibility, cheer and charm.

Many climbers will be aware that on his numerous exploits Smith almost invariably was disorganised to the despair of those around him. Regularly he would forget to bring important items such as food, compass, map or tent. Smith completed many climbs, famous to this day, at night or in the rain, sporting a battered pair of walking boots and carrying little or nothing that any modern mountaineer would regard as essential. Such casual bravura must have been carefully planned. An impish ragamuffin to the end, his apparently scatterbrained absent-mindedness was surely consciously deployed; he was giving the mountains a chance, deliberately playing triple-dog-dare with the circumstances.

Eventually, the mountains won. He was only 23 when he died, roped to the Everester Wilfred Noyce as they were descending from a successful ascent of Pik Garmo in the Pamirs as part of a joint UK-Soviet expedition. Jimmy Marshall, the only Scottish climber of his era to approach him in natural ability, is quoted in the book that he was unable to believe Smith's cat-like reflexes would have allowed him to slip on any snow slope, no matter how exhausted. One is tempted to conjecture that it was Noyce who slipped and pulled Smith to his death. However, that thought - the truth of which can never be known - is nowhere stated in the book, or elsewhere, and is mine alone. All serious climbers understand that to joust continually with the elemental forces of the mountains is to play a form of Russian Roulette. But to his peers, Smith must have appeared both charmed and invincible. It's easy to imagine the shock and disbelief that greeted the news of his death.

On many occasions his longsuffering partner was the great Dougal Haston, later of Everest fame but then also a youth. Yet in those early days, Smith was certainly the stronger climber. It feels like a weak understatement to sat that it was a tremendous tragedy for British mountaineering that he was killed when so young. Smith, a pioneer and innovator to his core, would surely have gone on to be one of the very greatest modern climbers in the Himalayas and elsewhere. What would he have achieved? Even in those tender years Smith had become a legend in his own time. This excellent biography adds substance to the aura, which has steadily grown over the years, of the sheer fun, outrageous mischief and exceptional achievement that surrounded him.

The subtitle `The Life and Legend of Robin Smith' defines precisely and concisely the subject of `High Endeavours', where though the life was brief and cut short, the legend is lengthy and carries on. `High Endeavours' is a biography of Robin Smith written over a period of many years by his schoolboy friend and early climbing partner Jimmy Cruickshank. It was short-listed for the 2006 Boardman-Tasker Award - and if I had been a panel judge I would have insisted it won. `High Endeavours' is a brilliant book about a brilliant man.

Robin Smith was only 23 years of age when he and Wilf Noyce fell to their deaths in the Pamirs when descending after a successful ascent of Pik Garmo. Robin, a Scot, had been invited onto a joint UK-Soviet meet in 1962 led by John Hunt to whom Robin had been proposed for selection as being "without a doubt the hardest man this side of the Border". Such reputation stemmed from Robin's bold fierce exploits climbing under the most appalling conditions with minimum gear. Over his short climbing career he gained an unsurpassed stature and status that lives on. By 1962 his natural talent and technical skills leading to dozens of first ascents on rock and ice in Scotland were widely recognised and respected, he had made raids South to poach new routes from awe-struck locals including two in a single day on Scafell, and in the Alps his performances had won him a formidable record of achievements including the first British ascent of the Walker Spur.

Jimmy Cruickshank has collected details from many sources including personal contacts with Robin's family, his friends and fellow climbers who knew Robin, and from commentators of the mountaineering community and various articles in climbing journals, and from Robin's own writings. In addition to climbing and mountaineering coverage Cruickshank develops a verbal personality portrait of Robin as always irrepressible, often irreverent, and occasionally irritating, but generally liked by all. In doing so he records Robin's brilliant intellectual capacity and academic accomplishments with reference to university tutors - Robin had been accepted to undertake PhD studies in philosophy when he was killed.

`High Endeavours' is divided into three main parts plus an epilogue with memories of family and close associates, together with acknowledgements, various notes, bibliography, glossary, and a table and appendix of Robin Smith's first ascents. Within the main content the first part: `An Apprentice No More: 1938-58' covers his early existence, introduction to mountains, preliminary scrambles, first climbs, launching of Alpine career and university life. The second part: `Tales of Adventure and Smith the Man: 1958-60' embraces great rock and ice performances in a combination that is almost an anthology. There are many of Robin's own roguish and humorous contributions including my favourites: `The Bat and the Wicked' telling of the first ascent of The Bat with Dougal Haston; and recollections and renditions by Jimmy Marshall from a glorious winter week on Ben Nevis. There is much more - but to say more could spoil it for readers - sufficient to record that quotations from Robin's writings, submissions and judgements of others, and Jimmy Cruickshank's disclosures, commentaries and sensitive tributes to his friend make terrific reading. For Part 3: `The Pamirs 1960-62' there is an account of the Pamirs meet with information on Wilf Noyce as well as the lead up, the undertaking and the outcome of this ill-fated expedition.

Over his short life Robin Smith was an inspiration to other climbers, and few would argue he is less than the greatest climber Scotland has ever produced. He created routes at the highest prevailing grades of his day and many are considered `classics' by the present generation. It is a matter of surprise that no biography was written until Jimmy Cruickshank's publication. It is unlikely there could be a better one - a brilliant man and a brilliant book.

This detailed and authoritative biography brings to life the all too short story of a great lost talent.