Phil Kelly's RockArchivist web site this week publishes three episodes of the legendary Joe Brown talking to the late Giles Barker.

Following the popular online publication of the late Giles Barker interviewing Tom Proctor, Andy Pollitt and Chris Gore (seprately!) the RockArchivist website this week publishes three episodes of Giles Barker talking with the legendary Joe Brown.

The tapes came into being when Giles Barker was interviewing Peak District activists during the mid-late 1980s for research for his planned book on the history of Peak District climbing.  The book was to be titled “Peak Performance - a Century of Climbing in the Peak District (1885-1980)” but was left unpublished when Giles sadly passed away in a tragic caving accident.

Giles’ audio tapes remain however and provide a unique insight into the climbing history of the Peak District as seen through a number of activists eyes, from Herbert Hartley through to Andy Pollitt and Chris Gore.  There are a total of 36 tapes, making over 40 hours of unedited listening.

In these interviews Joe Brown talks about the early years of Peak gritstone development including routes at Froggatt, Stanage, Curbar and Gardoms amongst others as well as talking about the scene, the equipment, the ethics and one or two epics.

There are three episodes of Joe Brown interviews released today, and next week will see the release of Giles’ interview with the Gibson brothers, Gary and Phil.

The recordings can be found at the RockArchivist web site at www.rockarchivist.co.uk.

Unfortunately these audio interviews are currently unavailable on the RockArchivist website.

The recordings are reproduced on the RockArchivist site with the kind permission of Mrs Barker and the Mountain Heritage Trust.
 

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