Joe Simpson

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2004

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the mountaineer Joe Simpson. He was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1960 where his father was stationed with the British Army. Over the next few years the family lived in Gibraltar, Ireland and Germany, although Joe returned to England for schooling at Ampleforth and showed an early adventurous spirit and love of sport.

But it was only after reading the classic account of attempted ascents on the Eiger - 'The White Spider' - by Heinrich Harrer that he developed an interest in his future passion. After a brief spell working at a saw mill and then at a quarry he studied English Literature at Edinburgh University. There he began climbing in earnest often attempting dangerous routes beyond his experience before tackling a previously unconquered route up Siula Grande - a peak in the Peruvian Andes. This climb was to make his name. He and his partner Simon Yates made the first successful ascent of the mountain's west face only to run into difficulties after Joe shattered his leg on their descent. After running out of resources and with no prospect of rescue Simon painstakingly lowered Joe towards shelter before being forced to cut the rope on his friend. Joe had inadvertently slid over an overhanging rock and was slowly pulling the two off the mountain. He landed in a crevasse and after being left for dead amazingly managed to crawl miles back to safety. Simon Yates was widely attacked for his actions in the climbing community leading Joe to write a defence of the rescue with his book 'Touching the Void', which has also been made into an award-winning film. Told he'd never climb again following the accident, Joe went on to climb many more mountains over the last two decades. He's worked as a mountaineering guide all over the world and written five more books.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: I'm Not A Man You Meet Everyday by Cait O'Riordon and the Pogues Book: Blank book and pen Alternative to Bible: The Sutras - the teachings of Gautama Buddha Luxury: A drink-making machine

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a mountaineer.
0:32.6	Brought up in an army household, he was sent away to boarding school
0:36.0	where he learned the essential skills of self-reliance,
0:39.0	without which he admits he might never have survived
0:42.0	a momentous life-threatening experience that
0:44.8	changed him forever. While climbing in Peru his companion was forced to cut the
0:50.0	rope that held him. He fell into a crevas and spent three days and three nights crawling back to base camp with a broken leg.
0:56.6	He should have died and his book about the experience touching the void
1:00.9	became a bestseller and an award-winning film. He should also never
1:04.8	have climbed again but he has although these days his living comes from his writing and his
1:09.7	lectures. The worst thing you can do is know your death, he says. I knew my death for several days and it wasn't good. He is Joe Simpson.
1:19.0	So you looked death in the eye for a protracted period, Joe. I suppose it might be the same on a desert
1:24.6	island really, although you will have water maybe and you won't have a busted leg.
1:28.0	Yes, I suppose I did. I mean, for the best part of four days days I suppose I'd accept it I was going to die I couldn't see I kept sort of struggling to survive
1:37.1	But I really couldn't see any way that I would I've always said that I think the reason I kept
1:45.8	Crawling was not because I thought I was going to survive, but because I didn't want to die alone, I wanted someone to hold me.
1:48.7	So what was the void that you touched? I mean it obviously wasn't a physical void it wasn't a psychological
1:54.5	void because you passed those tests didn't you? Yeah the void in the title I mean the
1:58.8	title took me ages to work out I wrote the book in about seven weeks and all just came
2:02.4	rushing out and then I was sort
	...

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