every schoolchild of my generation – the date of the Battle of Hastings and the last successful invasion of England by William of Normandy . We were all taught how Harold Godwinson , newly crowned King of England , rushed north to defeat the invading army of his brother Tostig and Harold Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September , 1066 . Then , on hearing that William had landed in Kent , he had to rush south again to meet his destiny , and that of England , at the Battle of Hastings on October 14 . So the �irst question to be asked of this nonetheless informative and historically rich guidebook is why 1066 Harold ’ s Way doesn ’ t start at the Stamford Bridge battle�ield near York and end at Hastings ? ( Apparently , the author did discuss the route from Stamford Bridge but found it dif�icult to establish a clear route on rights-of-way ). So this 100-mile , 10-day route instead follows what could have been Harold ’ s route from Westminster Abbey to Senlac Hill , east to Rochester and then due south roughly following the old Roman Road through Maidstone , Bodiam and Battle . The route is described in the author ’ s usual meticulous detail , but it is the regular “ Re�lections ” and the occasional excerpts from The Saxon Times , an imaginary newspaper from the period , which sets this apart as an entertaining and enlightening read , whether you do the walk or not .
High Risk : Climbing to Extinction
Brian Hall Sandstone Press £ 24.99 ( hb )
Renowned mountain guide
Brian Hall looks back on the lives – and deaths – of 11 of his climbing friends in this honest , un�linching but often joyful account of the so-called ‘ Golden Age ’ of Himalayan mountaineering . Himalayan climbing went through something of a revolution in the decade from the mid 1970s , when a generation of young British climbers eschewed the traditional , large and expensive military-style assaults on some of the highest peaks in the world . Instead , this group of fearless but technically brilliant climbers pioneered small , simple , Alpine style expeditions which , as the author using a metaphor which reveals his Shef�ield roots , “ left a legacy on which any of today ’ s climbs are forged .” Many , such as Paul Nunn , Al Rouse , Joe Tasker , Alex MacIntyre and Pete Thexton , paid the ultimate cost of their lives pursuing what the brilliant Polish current exponent of the style , Voytek Kurtyka , calls “ a higher
form of the mountaineering art ”. Hall knew most of his subjects as personal friends with whom he had regularly climbed or partnered on expeditions . So his brutally-honest accounts of their sometimes outrageous life styles are often tinged with a moving and understandable sadness at their untimely passing . Of course , Hall himself can speak of these things with a high degree of authority , as he took part in a dozen of these Alpine style attempts on the Himalayan giants himself , including the Doug Scott multi-national expedition to Makalu in 1984 . So to ask the perennial question usually posed by nonmountaineers , why are so many young climbers prepared to risk their lives in this way ? Hall ’ s answer is simple : “ Successfully pushing the boundaries creates euphoria and a unique satisfaction , which can result in an addiction to risk .” Or he perhaps expresses it best in the words of his sub-title ( which surely should have been the main one ), of “ climbing to extinction .”
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