[Closed] RIP Joe Brown

Bugger 🙁

A true legend gone. And a genuinely nice guy.

Great man. Superlatives are well justified when applied to him.

🙁

A boyhood hero. I guess he would have been my age now when I first got interested in all things mountains by which point he was effectively retired but a living legend.

I remember being introduced to him as teenager by another tough old boy of the same era and being totally starstruck.

Oh dear.
I can still remember watching the old Man of Hoy climb live with my dad.
Really thrilling.

I though it was Joe Brown the singer, I remember watching the Old Man of Hoy climb, but would never be able to say who the climbers were, I’m afraid. Sad news for the climbing community, but that’s a ripe old age in that sort of sport!

I’ve stood at the bottom of many crags looking at obvious yet unattainable 3* routes labelled ‘F.A. Brown J 195x’. Proper legend in my book.

Unconquerable.

RIP Joe.

Your post needs a pic Martin 😁

Yeah, this is sad news.

He was a true pioneer and nails.

His autobiography (The Hard Years) is inspiring stuff for rock climbers.

I especially loved the quote in response to being asked how, being small in stature, he managed to reach the high holds ‘oh, I just climb up to them...’

RIP Joe.

Legend and inspiration.
Sad news.

Bugger...
Real climbing legend was Brown. The Hard Years is a great read and his old friend Don Willans book the villain tells many a tale about Joe.
I climbed Brown's Eliminate at Froggat about 15 years ago and remember absolutely bricking it the whole way and have peeled off the shitty top out of Right Unconquerable.
Top bloke...RIP Joe

I remember him first from a repeat of the Old Man of Hoy film, where it was interspersed with then contemporary footage explains the experience the stack and explanations of his technique. All of this delivered with total modesty and a quiet humour.

Really inspiring.

😟 my Dad used to climb with him many years ago in the Peak District putting up new routes, and I remember being seeing him many years ago as a small child picking my Dad up from yet another climbing weekend away

RIP

Remember watching an old vid from the 80's of Brown and Whillans doing cemetery gates (Whillans last climb) and they're a couple of dry old buggers..had a chuckle a few times in that....Whillans turns up on his bike with a fag on the go, and Joe says what's the visor for Don...keep your fag dry.

I've got that video of Cemetery Gates, converted to DVD, and it's a top piece of telly. It'll be on youtube somewhere. "Don Whillans Last Climb" should find it, well worth hunting down.

My wife used to work for him when we started going out. Would often bump into him when walking the dog. Nice bloke.

Saw a comment somewhere that there's very few of the top guys from that era left - I think Kurt Diemburger is the only one now.

I especially loved the quote in response to being asked how, being small in stature, he managed to reach the high holds ‘oh, I just climb up to them…’

Pah, that's rubbish, he had incredibly long arms.

Pah, that’s rubbish, he had incredibly long arms.

And look at the size of him - he's at least three times the height of the Cromlech. Almost cheating 🙂

I had a masochistic love of Joe Brown routes back in my climbing days. I fondly remember taking half the skin off my arms and legs after thrutching up The Mincer at the roaches. It's very odd because I whilst I never met him, I almost feel like I know him through his routes. There are not many people in sport who will leave such a legacy as he did.

A friend was round at Joe's house in Llanberis when Joe shoves a crag shot into his hand and says "What do you reckon?" My friend looks at the photo thinking that it's all very familiar somehow but there's something not right and he can't place it. Eventually he gives up and hands the photo back to Joe ...

"That's Cenotaph Corner when we first tried it!"

The reason my friend didn't recognise it was that the whole corner was a mass of vegetation - grass and heather - they never pre-cleaned things back then, just took things as they came.

This deserves to be bumped for such a legend. Twenty years after the event and I still get sweaty palms from my only attempt on Right Unconquerable 😂