Jenny Rice

January 26, 2023

Escape: Into The Mountains

Jenny Rice

January 26, 2023

You can hear Peter Boardman talking about Cornices during this programme, hosted by Cerys Mathews at about 10mins into the programme, together with others and including our very own BT SLA event interviewer Stephen Venables on Antarctica.

listen here

Jenny Rice

January 12, 2023

Paul Tasker interview on BBC Sounds

Jenny Rice

January 12, 2023

Paul Tasker spoke about his brother and his mountaineering career in this interview with Gary Philipson on Radio Tees.

Listen here.

Jenny Rice

January 3, 2023

A few words from the winners

Jenny Rice

January 3, 2023

Helen Mort

I grew up admiring the books of Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker. Many of the mountain literature texts which won the BT prize over the years were formative in my interests as a (very amateur) climber but also as a writer. I never dreamed that my own work would join that list one day. I’m thrilled that ‘A Line Above The Sky’ has received this honour from judges who I admire. In fact, as a former judge of the prize myself, I know exactly how much work and care goes into the process and how difficult it is to make decisions, so my gratitude is doubled. The prize is instrumental in expanding our sense of what ‘mountain literature’ can be and this year’s shortlist reflected the diversity of work being published - I was proud to be amongst all the authors, especially Anna Fleming who I’ve been on tour with this year talking about gender and climbing. The award creates a real sense of community and fellowship I think. It’s exciting!

Brian Hall

Three years ago I was struggling to start writing, trying to define my audience and quite simply what my book was going to be about. The idea of a ’time capsule’ emerged by revisiting a period in the seventies and eighties which perhaps was the golden age of Himalayan mountaineering. Many of my friends had died as we changed the style of Greater Range mountaineering from Heavyweight Expeditions to faster and lighter Alpine style. Just to talk about climbing would not do the characters justice and I also wanted to illustrate the counter culture in which we lived at that time. Eventually I developed a concept to speak about a generation of climbers through the voices of those that can no longer speak.

As a relative novice to writing a book I was overwhelmed by the size of the project. But I attended the Banff Mountain and Wilderness Writing program in 2019. This brilliant course gave me confidence, empowering me to forge ahead with my memoir. As the pages started to accumulate I was in a world of my own, unlocking my memories through diaries, photographs, books, articles and crucially talking to friends. I was writing the book for myself, without a care that anyone would actually read it. Of course I wrote too much and it was only when Robert Davidson of my publishers, Sandstone Press started editing, that 'High Risk: Climbing to Extinction' started to read like a proper book. The notion of entering it into the Boardman Tasker Mountain Literature Award was far beyond reality. When I was one of six shortlisted out of forty entries I was amazed. Had the book done justice to the memory of my friends who where no longer with us? I had no reference point as to whether my book was good or bad. One chapter focused on Joe Tasker and I was paranoid that my writing would not reflect his stature as one of the worlds top mountaineers. Soon my climbing friends started giving me positive feedback, which swaged my fears. Obviously I was elated to be the joint winner of the 2022 Award and the enormity of the accolade has still not sunk in.

Jenny Rice

November 28, 2022

Marni Jackson - Chair of Boardman Tasker Judges 2022 speech

Jenny Rice

November 28, 2022

l-r: Helen Mort, Brian Hall, Paul Pritchard, Kieran Cunningham, Anna Fleming, Robert Charles Lee, Stephen Venables and Paul Tasker

Hello, my name is Marni Jackson and I’m talking to you from Toronto, Canada. There are no mountains here, which is one reason why I loved escaping into the books submitted to the Boardman Tasker Award this year – all forty of them, piling up like a small mountain of words in one corner of my office.

And now there are six.

I would like thank every author for the experiences they’ve shared on the page – for their generosity. I also want to thank my fellow jury members, Matt Fry and Natalie Berry, for being such good companions on this reading expedition. Together, sometimes wearing only pyjamas, we managed to climb K2 in winter, traverse the Black Cuillin (hope I’m pronouncing that right) do a few gritty routes on Stanage, and dangle upside down in a blue crevasse – all without leaving the house.

But NOT climbing turns out to have its risks as well. Kieran Cunningham has written a highly engaging account of how he spent the pandemic in the Italian alps, in lockdown, forbidden to climb his favourite peaks—and what that did to his mental health. Climbing the Walls is a reminder of the healing power of mountains and why they matter.

And I didn’t know that risk could be measured until I read Through Dangerous Doors by Robert Charles Lee, a retired risk scientist who went from adventuring with psychedelics to climbing on rock and ice, often with his equally adventurous partner Linda. Compulsively candid, Lee has written an unfiltered, unpredictable memoir that’s a pleasure to read.

Time on Rock by Anna Fleming captures the intimate relationship between climber and rock, whether it’s the gritstone of the Peak District or the granite of the Cairngorms. Her elegant, muscular writing puts us right there on the route with her, creating a peripatetic meditation on how “we shape the rock and the rock shapes us”.

Having won the Boardman Tasker prize previously for Deep Play, with his new book Paul Pritchard has gone even deeper into the spiritual rewards of a life in the mountains. After Paul was almost killed by a falling rock while climbing in Tasmania, he had to push through new physical limitations to arrive at insights that have changed his life. The Mountain Path is a devastatingly honest and inspirational account of choosing to live. It’s also great fun to read.

I think Natalie and Matt would agree that every book on our short list expands the boundaries of mountain literature. This is especially true of A Line Above The Sky, in which the poet Helen Mort draws a line between the risks and terrors of new motherhood and a more untethered life in the mountains. Freedom vs. family – that is the crux where many turn back. Shadowing the story of Alison Hargreaves, who refused to give up alpinism when she became a mother, Helen brilliantly captures the soul-forging power of two extreme experiences—climbing mountains and giving birth.

While Helen writes about women in the mountains, Brian Hall tells the story of eleven remarkable mountain-addicted men. Brian grew up with the radical climbers who would come to define a wild and glorious chapter of mountaineering in the nineteen seventies and eighties. He partied with them, climbed with them and grieved them. Full of humour, affection and respect, High Risk: Climbing to Extinction takes the reader to the heart and soul of the golden age of UK climbing.

And now we come to the announcement you’ve been waiting for...

This year, in an unanimous decision, the jury also took a risk and drew a line. The 2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature goes to both Brian Hall, for High Risk: Climbing to Extinction and to Helen Mort for A Line Above The Sky. Congratulations to the winners, greetings from Canada and I hope you all enjoy the celebrations tonight. Thank you.

Jenny Rice

November 18, 2022

2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature - The Winners

Jenny Rice

November 18, 2022

The 2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature goes to both Brian Hall, for High Risk: Climbing to Extinction and to Helen Mort for A Line Above The Sky.

Congratulations to the winners!

High Risk

Brian Hall grew up with the radical climbers who would come to define a wild and glorious chapter of Himalayan mountaineering in the late nineteen seventies and eighties. He partied with them, climbed with them, and grieved many of the eleven unforgettable climbers portrayed in his book. High Risk takes the reader right to the heart and soul of the golden age of UK climbing.

Climbing exploits worldwide led Brian Hall to become an internationally certified mountain guide who provides extreme location safety and rigging for the film industry. His numerous credits include the BAFTA award-winning film Touching the Void. Between 1980 and 2008, he co-directed the Kendal Mountain Film Festival of which he is a founder. Brian and his wife, Louise, divide their time between the UK’s Peak District and New Zealand’s Southern Alps.

A Line Above The Sky

One of Britain’s best young poets draws a line between the risks and terrors of motherhood and an untethered life in the mountains. Shadowing the life of Alison Hargreaves, the pioneering UK climber who did not give up alpinism when she became a mother, Helen Mort brilliantly explores the visceral education that is part of climbing mountains, and giving birth.

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985, and grew up in nearby Chesterfield. Five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. Her first collection, Division Street (2013), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Poetry Award, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2014, she was named as a 'Next Generation Poet', the prestigious accolade announced only once every ten years, recognising the 20 most exciting new poets from the UK and Ireland. No Map Could Show Them (2016), her second collection, about women and mountaineering, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Helen has been the Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence and the Derbyshire Poet Laureate and was named one of the RSL's 40 under 40 Fellows in 2018. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield. Black Car Burning was her first novel, and A Line Above the Sky is her first work of narrative memoir.

If you missed the Award Ceremony - you can watch it on Kendal Mountain Player from Saturday 19 November.

The Chair Of Judges’ speech by Marni Jackson is available to read here.

Jenny Rice

November 14, 2022

Kicking off the BT – an intro guide by Andy Perkins

Jenny Rice

November 14, 2022

Boardman Tasker Award 2019
© Henry Iddon

Back in 2015, Kendal Mountain Festival had its grand opening in the high street. We had a huge pop-up screen set up right in front of the Town Hall. Hundreds of people were gathered, kids on foam mats at the front, and row upon row of expectant faces receding into the gloom as the music pumped and the excitement mounted.

It was my role as presenter and “Face of the Fest” to get up on stage and kick the whole show off. I’d always have butterflies as the trailer played and I got ready to set the tone for the Festival. That year, the sound feed for the very first film dropped out, so I had to jump back up on stage and ad-lib while the tech crew worked their magic. I talked utter nonsense: my recent climbing trip to Kalymnos, the cut of my trousers, my favourite type of bouldering moves… it seemed like an age but was probably only a couple of minutes.

Coming off stage, Festival Director Steve Scott came up to me and said “What on earth was that bollocks you were spouting? It was brilliant. Janet Dean from the BT asks if you can do something for the Boardman Tasker next year”. And the rest (to use a cliché that’s as well-worn as the routes above the Catwalk at Malham) is history.

The brief from the Boardman Tasker team was pretty broad – just get everyone relaxed – the short-listed authors, the judges, Steve Venables (yes - even the Central Scrutiniser can get stage butterflies) and above all the audience. One of my guiding principles of presenting is to get plenty of audience interaction and I’ve been lucky to know some of the protagonists personally. Sir Chris B is always there, as is Dennis Gray. Graham Desroy was chief judge one year, and shortlisted authors have included my friends Mick Fowler, Nick Bullock and Victor Saunders. Tony Howard and Di Taylor are always in the room and after many years of doing the gig I’m proud to count Janet and Steve Dean and the wonderfully dedicated Martin Wragg among my friends as well.

When I first started thinking about how I should set the tone for the event, there were two main themes:
1. Point out that mountain literature has lots of other channels than books.
We can’t have the literati taking themselves too seriously. And
2. Make it light-hearted, irreverent and funny.

Here’s my notes from the inaugural address in 2016:

Each year, I’ve trawled the seabed of my brain for different ways with words to express what mountains mean to us as a community. I’ve used sources as diverse as poetry and guidebook iconography. I especially enjoyed using descriptions of mountains in children’s books, specifically The Hobbit and Winnie The Pooh. One of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had from the audience was when Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh have the following exchange while hunting for the North Pole:

"We are all going on an Expedition," said Christopher Robin.

"Going on an Expotition?" said Pooh eagerly. "I don't think I've ever been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?"
"Expedition, silly old Bear. It's got an 'x' in it."
"Oh!" said Pooh. "I know." But he didn't really.

"We're going to discover the North Pole."
"Oh!" said Pooh again. "What is the North Pole?" he asked.
"It's just a thing you discover," said Christopher Robin carelessly, not being quite sure himself.

"Oh! I see," said Pooh. "Are bears any good at discovering it?"
"Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of you. It's an Expedition. That's what an Expedition means. A long line of everybody.”

A gale of laughter went round the Malt Room (phew, thinks Andy. Result!).
The last line clearly resonated with quite a few folk in the Malt Room.

Initially I was quite cautious, wanting to ensure I did Pete and Joe (and the Award) justice. As the gigs went by, I felt I could push the envelope a little more. One year we had a live quiz to identify the mountain related song lyrics, where the audience had to guess the song titles from a sound bite, after which we’d play the extract. Here they are again for your delectation and delight. No cheating by referring to Google:

You say the hill's too steep to climb
Climb it.
You say you'd like to see me try
Climbing.

You pick the place
and I'll choose the time
And I'll climb
The hill in my own way.
Just wait a while
for the right day.

Pretty easy that one…
Now try this for size.

Amusing belly dancers
Distract me from my wine
Across Tibetan mountains
Are memories of mine
I've stood some ghostly moments
With natives in the hills
Recording here on paper
My chills and thrills and spills

One culturally attuned audience member got it before we played the clip.
Hats off to that man, whoever you are.

I was particularly pleased to use that last line, as BT shortlisted authors often spend time in the hills and record on paper their chills and thrills and spills. These lyrics are followed by a banging 70’s rock guitar solo which fades to a pulsing drumbeat. Welcoming a besuited Martin Wragg to the stage, waving my arms around like Kermit the Frog on the Muppet Show was one of the dafter moments in my Kendal career.

Music has a real power to raise emotion and set a tone.
Just a few days before the 2019 festival, the innovative and inspirational climber (and BT shortlisted author) Andy Pollitt had died suddenly with a cerebral aneurysm.
His friend Steve Dean asked me to say a few words before we kicked off the second half when the award gets announced. It can be quite hard to get people to take their seats as they’re often in white-wine-fuelled conversation with friends. This time it was easy: the cover of Andy’s book “Punk in the Gym” appeared on screen, accompanied by a very loud 60 seconds of Joan Jett’s version of “Let’s Do It”. Everyone was firmly sat down as the last chord crashed. I stood up and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen. The Punk has left the Gym. A minute’s silence would be inappropriate”.
It’s one of my finer lines, and I like to think that Pollitt would have approved.

Similarly, I’d like to think that the spirits of Pete and Joe, borne by the jet stream from the north-north-east ridge of Everest, swept round the world, up Kendal High Street and into the Brewery Arts Centre, would stand at the back of the Malt Room and grin quietly. It’s been a real privilege to try and do them justice each year, and a pleasure bringing the event to Kendal.

When the BT moved to an online event in the aftermath of Covid, I had the challenge of maintaining the same principles of tone but without the audience interaction. The bonus was that I’d be “presenting” at home in Chamonix rather than in the darkness of the Malt Room, and that gave some location opportunities and source of inspiration. My first broadcast was from the foot of the boulder in Snell’s field, and 2021’s BT intro used steep skiing as a metaphor for writing books.

I retired from my position as presenter coordinator at KMF after the 2021 Festival, and when the tribe gathers in Kendal on the 19th November, I’ll be on a flight to Antarctica.

Meanwhile, my thanks to the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature team for all their hard work in bringing it to the public, the authors for their creativity and inspiring us to do more, and to you the audience for tolerating my irreverence each year. 2023 is of course forty years since the first Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. Here’s to many more!

Cheers. 🍻

Andy P

Chamonix
September 2022

Jenny Rice

September 8, 2022

2022 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature Shortlist Announced

Jenny Rice

September 8, 2022

The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature continues to attract a substantial level of entries. This year there were 40 entries, from Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Peru and the USA. The Award will be made at the Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors and Awards event at the Kendal Mountain Festival, on Friday November 18th 2022 at 7 to 9pm (UK time).

Tickets available here.

The judges for 2022 are Marni Jackson (Chair), Matt Fry and Natalie Berry. They have selected the following 6 books for this year’s shortlist:

Kieran Cunningham

CLIMBING THE WALLS
Learning to Cope When your World Crumbles

Simon & Schuster

A highly engaging, often humorous account of a dedicated climber who is forced to spend the pandemic in lockdown, in Italy, mostly NOT climbing—and the consequences for his mental health. A reminder of why mountains matter.

Kieran Cunningham is a Scottish climber and journalist who lives in Sondrio, Italy, a mountainous part of Lombardy which lies south of the Swiss border and about fifty miles from Lake Como. He has lived there for six years, having arrived as a teacher and then switching to a full-time career as a climbing journalist, writing for the Observer, Little India, Cool of the Wild, and Moja Gear as well as editing the outdoors blog My Open Country.

Anna Fleming

TIME ON ROCK
A Climber’s Route into the Mountains

Canongate Publishing

A gorgeously written, elegant and sensual account of the intimate relationship between climber and rock, whether it’s the gritstone of the Peak District or the granite of the Cairngorms. A peripatetic meditation on how “we shape the rock and the rock shapes us”.

Anna Fleming is a regular contributor to Caught by the River and has also published her work in various journals, magazines and anthologies. As well as writing for the Guardian, she keeps a regular blog, The Granite Sea, in which she writes about her experiences of the natural world. Anna is a qualified Mountain Leader who has also worked for the Cairngorms National Park Authority and completed a PhD with the University of Leeds. She lives in Edinburgh.

Brian Hall

HIGH RISK
Climbing to Extinction

Sandstone Press

Brian Hall grew up with the radical climbers who would come to define a wild and glorious chapter of Himalayan mountaineering in the late nineteen seventies and eighties. He partied with them, climbed with them, and grieved many of the eleven unforgettable climbers portrayed in his book. High Risk takes the reader right to the heart and soul of the golden age of UK climbing.

Climbing exploits worldwide led Brian Hall to become an internationally certified mountain guide who provides extreme location safety and rigging for the film industry. His numerous credits include the BAFTA award-winning film Touching the Void. Between 1980 and 2008, he co-directed the Kendal Mountain Film Festival of which he is a founder. Brian and his wife, Louise, divide their time between the UK’s Peak District and New Zealand’s Southern Alps.

Robert Charles Lee

THROUGH DANGEROUS DOORS
A Life at Risk

WiDO Publishing

Robert Charles Lee is a professional risk scientist who likes to test his own limits, in life, love and in the mountains, climbing rock and ice. He doesn’t play safe with his writing either, offering readers his unfiltered, sometimes jaw-dropping account of what it means to take risks, and survive.

Robert Charles Lee is a retired scientist, with a former career in risk analysis, decision analysis, and risk management. His work ranged from patient safety to radioactive waste to asteroid impact risk - and yes, mountaineering risk. He was born in North Carolina, USA and lived there for over twenty years, but has since lived and worked in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, and Alberta, Canada. He currently lives in Colorado with his wife Linda and their two dogs.