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NickiCrutchfield

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Having 'saved' Tilman for many years I have just finished my first. 'Triumph and Tribulation' has been a very good companion for the last week of rationed reading. I am deeply struck by his toughness and humility; his ability to devote an entire paragraph to a duff, whilst a short sentence will express his utter dissatisfaction with a situation or crew member. I found his lack of sentimentality to be, somewhat counter-intuitively, deeply moving. The concept of an aging, in fact old, man with an old boat plugging on with dogged determination, is stirring. The fact that he makes no disguise of his impending feebleness, but is openly defiant, struck many chords with me. I'm only 38, but already I sense that I am supposed to begin to think in an 'older' manner; to concede youthful thoughts and desires to the young, I don't, and, deliciously, Tilman, at twice my age, doesn't either. He does not allow time to dictate his actions. He remains young. The incredible pathos of the last page, is crafted by the delicate hand of a true master. A great man, and one of those whom I would have been honoured to meet.
I'm off to ebay to buy some more. True reading pleasure.
Nicki
 
To share one of my favourites...I hope I don't spoil it for you...

If the navigator is asked by one of the crew where his ship is, he feels obliged to commit himself or a least hazard a guess. On the other hand, if he is not asked and he thinks he knows where his is, he should not let pride tempt him into announcing to a suitably awe-struck crew what sea-mark or cape they will presently sight and where, or as in this instance, what they will not sight. But every ass loves to hear himself bray. I thought we were too far east to sight Smith’s Knoll light vessel and rashly imparted this unimportant piece of knowledge to the crew. No one unkindly reminded me of this. It was humiliation enough to read later the log-book entry to the effect that we had left that particular light vessel close to port at 4am.

(Trimph and Tribulation, H.W. Tilmam)

I've got quite a few that I copied out and still love re-reading them

'The Eight Sailing / Mountain - Exploration Books' by Tilman. Best money I've spent.
 
Read your notes and got the 8 Mountains book.

So easy to make assumptions of someone, and as I read I find a growing admiration for the sort of character this country once grew.

Whilst no climber myself my son in law has told me of his experiences of the climbs in Kenya and the Himalayas, and his admiration for the generation who did all these without the modern kit and books, and how understated all this writing is.


Will take me awhile to read, but then can go onto the sailing.
 
MarkGrubb said:
To share one of my favourites...I hope I don't spoil it for you...

If the navigator is asked by one of the crew where his ship is, he feels obliged to commit himself or a least hazard a guess. On the other hand, if he is not asked and he thinks he knows where his is, he should not let pride tempt him into announcing to a suitably awe-struck crew what sea-mark or cape they will presently sight and where, or as in this instance, what they will not sight. But every ass loves to hear himself bray. I thought we were too far east to sight Smith’s Knoll light vessel and rashly imparted this unimportant piece of knowledge to the crew. No one unkindly reminded me of this. It was humiliation enough to read later the log-book entry to the effect that we had left that particular light vessel close to port at 4am.

(Trimph and Tribulation, H.W. Tilmam)

I've got quite a few that I copied out and still love re-reading them

'The Eight Sailing / Mountain - Exploration Books' by Tilman. Best money I've spent.
Click to expand...

I was there at the time. Contrary to what a biographer, Dr Madge, who was not there at the time, wrote in his book, in which he wastes half a page on a scene which never happened, we none of us thought twice about it.
 
Paul and Alan had sailed a Wayfarer to St Kilda, which I reckon is pretty good, espescially in those days - forty miles of North Atlantic to find a speck of an island, in a dinghy, with no GPS and not much by way of weather forecasts. I had been messing about in little boats in the Thames estuary. David was new to sailing and could not have cared less. So 75% of the crew had already made far bigger navigational errors and we thought nothing of it.

I commend Bob Comlay’s website.
 
MarkGrubb said:
To share one of my favourites...I hope I don't spoil it for you...

If the navigator is asked by one of the crew where his ship is, he feels obliged to commit himself or a least hazard a guess. On the other hand, if he is not asked and he thinks he knows where his is, he should not let pride tempt him into announcing to a suitably awe-struck crew what sea-mark or cape they will presently sight and where, or as in this instance, what they will not sight. But every ass loves to hear himself bray. I thought we were too far east to sight Smith’s Knoll light vessel and rashly imparted this unimportant piece of knowledge to the crew. No one unkindly reminded me of this. It was humiliation enough to read later the log-book entry to the effect that we had left that particular light vessel close to port at 4am.

(Trimph and Tribulation, H.W. Tilmam)

I've got quite a few that I copied out and still love re-reading them

'The Eight Sailing / Mountain - Exploration Books' by Tilman. Best money I've spent.
Click to expand...

Not many writers have such dry succinctness
 
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