Hugh Banner 1933 - 2007

John Earl

I was on a climbing trip to Spain when I heard of Hugh's death. I was both shocked and saddened, I knew that he had been ill but had not realised quite how close to the end he was.

Born in Crosby near Liverpool, he went to Bristol University where he studied chemistry and started climbing. First ascents of routes including Central Buttress and Great Central Route in the Avon Gorge followed. Hugh is however best known for his exploits in North Wales, as the first non Rock and Ice member to repeat the Brown and Whillans routes making second and third ascents of many of them, before going on to pioneer his own routes, Gecko Groove and Troach on Cloggy.

Although from a previous generation to me, because of his attitude to life in general and climbing in particular, I thought of him as a more experienced contemporary.

Hugh at Eagle Crag, Buttermere in the mid-70's

Hugh was already a member of the NMC before I met him in about 1970. I think it was in a pub in Newcastle to discuss the 1971 New Guide to Northumberland as Ken MacDonald and I wanted our newly developed Corby's Crag included.

My first climbing experience with Hugh was a trip to Bowden on a foggy day in March 1972 where Hugh somehow left his car headlights on. When we returned to the car at the end of the day's cragging not surprisingly the car wouldn't start. This meant a wait in a pub in Belford for Hugh's wife Maureen, and the RAC man which resulted in me getting home in the early hours of Monday morning. My new wife couldn't understand how I could possibly get home so late from a local crag when it got dark at 6pm. But this tended to be the way with Hugh's climbing trips-as Carol was soon to discover.

Hugh's hard routes on Cloggy tended to be unprotected technical wall climbing but in Northumberland it was the unclimbed cracks that attracted him. I was there when he did the first ascent of Crucifix at Kyloe in the Woods which he climbed with consummate ease whereas those of us who followed did not show the same panache. Hugh was a superb crack climber and introduced us to the subtleties of finger locks to off-widths. Although he went on to design and produce an excellent range of nuts and camming devices through his company HB he bemoaned the invention of such protection as this in his opinion had resulted in the end of crack climbing as an art form as it no longer necessitated the placing and threading of pebbles on lead.

I was also present when he did Trouser Legs which is powerful low down and delicate and poorly protected higher up. To us these routes definitely looked and felt like Extremes but Hugh assured us they were barely HVS and hence the Northumberland sandbag grades were born.

Hugh had a great love of speed whether on two or four wheels. During his time in Northumberland he had a three litre Capri which was very fast in a straight line. When Hugh talked to you he liked to look you in the eye-somewhat worrying when he was driving with back seat passengers. Once in the back of his Capri, going well over the speed limit on a flooded A1, Hugh turned to me as the car was aquaplaning down the dual carriageway and commented on the car's poor handling characteristics particularly in the wet.

Hugh gathered around him a band of keen ambitious young climbers including Bob Hutchinson, George Micheson, Dave Ladkin, Mick Foggin, Dennis Lee, Ian Cranston and myself. He gave us an insight into what hard climbing was all about and what we were capable of achieving.

During his time in the North East, Bob Hutchinson and I climbed regularly with Hugh, in Northumberland, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, the Lakes and Wales and benefited enormously from his advice and encouragement.

When Hugh first arrived in Northumberland his enthusiasm for climbing was reawakened and he was responsible for a host of new routes most of which were included in the NMC's 1971 guide to Rock Climbing in Northumberland. I cannot emphasise highly enough the influence he had on the development of Northumberland climbing and its climbers. He also made us realise just how good our rock was and how favourably it compared with other outcrop areas in the country.