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Six boys, one Rope, a Horseshoe, and the Crags. Remarkable exploits of six lads on the crags, emerge from the obscurity of lying on a dusty bookshelf for over eighty years. Here, we are transported back to a world of intrepid youth and adventure in the outdoors, long before health and safety had even been imagined. In Rock Climbs - a Guide to the Crags in the Inverness Area, published in 1938, Richard Frere, the sixteen-year-old author, gives a tantalising insight into what was possible for this group of young friends, comrades, with a rich mix of curiosity, determination, collaboration, and resourcefulness. Come and join the members of the Highland Mountaineering Club of the 1930s on the crags in their local area as they explore, and Richard turns their amazing experiences into a very worthy climbing guide of the period. It is a unique time warp for us to enjoy to the full. In republishing this special little book, we have sought to put it into context, and to discover Richard`s fine inspirational legacy for one member of his family. It also leaves us wondering what might have been, had War not intervened and scattered the group to the four winds. Only three survived this conflict, and the loss of their fellow youthful adventurers, whose friendships had been forged so strongly on the crags, left an enduring dark shadow over this memory. In these pages, we enter a world that has long gone, but we discover what youth can achieve together, could achieve today even, in a landscape that is as old as the hills.

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9781447817734

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This, the first republication in almost ninety years brings a very special little book back into the public domain. In rescuing it from obscurity, the editing team comprising Peter Wright, Jane Frere, Kenneth Wright and with valuable support from Neville Rigby have sought to do justice to the remarkable original, written as it was, by an intrepid boy of just sixteen years. We commend it to those who would wish to know more about the rock climbing opportunities in the Inverness area - especially as described so eloquently from the experiences of youth. But it also gives a moving insight into what six boys could together achieve, as they grew from the ages of thirteen to sixteen. It has been worth putting the original book into context, and from this to show not only what a special group of boys these were all those years ago, but to give credit where it is undoubtedly due. Yes, there is sorrow in it, due to the tragedy of the War that ensued, but what shines through is a remarkable story nonetheless. Jane, the daughter of the the author, rounds off the republished book to perfection, in a moving account of how her father`s passion for the Scottish mountains and landscapes, shaped her own life, talents and interests.

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