The Lithophil es
By ROGER PILKINGTON
N0 nation is so positively lithophilic as the British, and it is surprising that this facet of the national character has not been more widely investigated in university theses, for in the strongly inbred tendency to revere and wor- ship stones there can undoubtedly be found an important clue to the temperament of the Britons throughout the centuries.
Archaeological research has shown that for approximately 5,000 years the laborious removal of immense pieces of natural stone from one place to another has played an important part in native life. Not only is Stonehenge a classic example of this tireless activity—some of the larger stones were manhandled to Salisbury Plain from South Wales—but there are many other instances of the cult, some of which have involved stupendous feats of transport. The Elgin Marbles, the Cleopatra Needle and the ruined temple transported intact from Egypt to Virginia Water are among the better-known examples; and in our own day there has been the extraordinary exertion of those citizens who dragged a weighty piece of stone from Westminster Abbey in order to leave it on the grass within the precincts of a ruined abbey beyond the Tweed.
Mere stone-moving is known to have given place gradually to- a more refined development in stone-worship, namely that of scaling stone edifices. In recent centuries the climbing of buildings has reached a particular high development in Cambridge, where the activity is exclusively confined to the hours of darkness. There can be little doubt that night- climbing was originally a secret business confined only to initiates, but the present century has seen the first contributions to literature connected with the cult. The first of these, The Roof Climber's Guide to Trinity, was published anonymously, and is something in the nature of an instruction-manual for initiates. Doubts have been cast by the proprietors of the buildings concerned upon the authenticity of this work, but those who have followed its detailed directions for climbs in Neville's Court cannot fail to be convinced that it is the work of a scholar thoroughly at home in his subject; and the famous passage which has caused so much dissension among serious students, in which the author recommends the use of a cross- bow for firing a string, from roof to roof, can probably best be interpreted as having some special symbolic meaning for initiates alone.
With the publication in 1937 of Whipplesnaith's The Night Climbers of Cambridge, and its reprinting this year, the cult has taken a missionary turn. Not only does the author exhort his readers to test their suitability for becoming a night climber by sitting on a window-ledge thirty feet above the pavement and looking down—those who fail in this simple test are presumably dealt with free of charge in a National Health Service accident ward—but he provides photographs of many of the most sacred aretes and traverses, difficult routes being picked out with dotted lines to assist the beginner. Frequently the illustrations (rhostly, of course, flashlight) show members of the cult in the process of scaling statuary and even apparently featureless walls. Among those seen in these surprising situa- tions one may recognise a manufacturer of preserved foods and a prominent member of Her Majesty's Colonial Service. Some years ago it fell to my lot to be showing a Conti- nental guest around Cambridge, and took him to the most coveted prize among Cambridge ascents, King's College Chapel. Whoever may have wished to tax the royal saint with vain expense, it could certainly not have been a night climber, for a more fascinating building could scarcely be devised. The edifice has only been climbed from the ground to the pinnacles without a rope or other safety device on one single occasion so far as is known, and that was in 1936. Strangely enough this notable climb was carried out on a sudden impulse. An undergraduate was awakened long after midnight by the tutor blundering into his bedroom in error—he was on the wrong staircase—and after the apologetic don had retired again the climber suddenly realised that he had an alibi which was very unlikely to be broken under even the most vigorous cross- examination. Had not the tutor seen him in bed at one-thirty ? Five minutes later he was dressed, out of the window, and away round the Backs, taking nothing with him but a small swastika flag to tie to the summit to encourage others. The chapel-climb is extremely exacting (or was so before the college made it quite impossible by inserting chevaux de (rise and choc-stones to obstruct the magnificent chimney which runs straight from the ground to the roof in a single exhausting pitch), and even when the roof is reached there are several serious obstacles still to be contended with. The turret has two overhangs, the upper one of which is formidable, and on the return journey there is the most difficult job of getting into the top of the chimney again for the final descent to the ground, hardly visible in the vertical distance below.
I did my best to explain these fine points to his com- panion, and ended my detailed account with the words, " Well, that's the way up King's Chapel," whereupon the Continental asked the extraordinary question : " Is there then no stair- case inside ? " After overcoming my natural irritation' at this ignorance of our national culture, I proceeded patiently to analyse the reasons for the fascination that night climbing held not only for himself but for a fpir number in every under- graduate generation. Firstly there is the fact that it is a proscribed activity at Cambridge, and the climber is therefore a higher development of the man who intentionally emerges from the underground through the passage marked " No Exit." Undoubtedly disobedience to rules is a strong trait in the British, but it can hardly be a coincidence that every con- quest of King's Chapel during the present century has been made by Old Rugbeians, young men who have grown up with the daily view of a stone set in the wall of the close to com- memorate " the exploit of William Webb Ellis, who with a fine disregard of the rules of football as played in his 'time, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it . . . ." Fine disregard of the rules—that is a sine qua non of the night climber.
Then there is the sense of achieving the apparently impos- sible, and the ready acceptance of the difficult climb as a challenge to one's skill. But direct motives as such there are none, and the climber does not bask in the fame which would accompany a corresponding conquest in the Alps, since identification may have serious consequences for him.
Nor is there any social pleasure to be had from climbing of this highly specialised variety, for the man who scales the vertical faces of King's or the Old Library (specially recom- mended by Whipplesnaith as a safe spot for nursery climbs) must essentially be a lone bird. The art itself, and the silence without which it may end in rustication, are both inimical to crowds, but perhaps the climber 'does not regret this fact. The desire to be alone and to express his self-reliance may be a factor in the make-up of the night climber.
Yet all these together will not account satisfactorily for the indescribable thrill experienced in standing aloft at three in the morning on the topmost stone of King's Chapel with one hand on the fork of the lightning conductor, surveying the sleeping city far below. Surely only some distant echo of the megalithic culture can adequately account for a sensation which even in Alpine climbing has no absolute equal.
Previous page
