Andy Kirkpatrick’s talk at ShAFF review

Andy Kirkpatrick is a man with a reputation.  Metro newspaper said that his first book, Psychovertical, “made Ray Mears look like Paris Hilton”, not that I think Andy was competing with Ray in the shorts-wearing stick-whittling stakes.  He’s happy to declare himself “Hull’s second best climber” (and I’m hoping Gareth will fill me in on who’s best).  But Andy’s really known as a man who can convey the magnitude of the challenges he takes on, whilst never losing sight of the humour of whatever situation he finds himself in.  So when I discovered that Andy would be speaking at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, introducing his new book ‘Cold Wars’, I jumped at the chance to go, and to take some non-climber friends along too.

Andy’s introduced a new format for the talk to accompany Cold Wars, and his Twitter stream in the weeks running up to the event revealed that he was both nervous and excited about debuting the new material: “Haven’t felt this excited about a talk for a long time. Think it could be quite emotional”. I’ve always found Andy an interesting example of the contemporary mountaineer, because he writes openly and honestly about the conflict in his life and the opposing forces of family and career.  For every criticism of female mountaineers (or athletes, or businesswomen), there’s always the riposte of “well, nobody asks male mountaineers/athletes/businessmen about the sacrifices and impact on their wives or children”; Andy is a great example of an adventurer who freely shares those issues with his audience.

So I was fascinated that Andy chose to read two chapters from his new book which deal directly with the impact of his young family on his ambitions, as he opened his talk with a chapter about his young son getting ill.  He followed it with a reflection on the different lives that he and Ian Parnell were simultaneously experiencing, as Ian prepared for an expedition while Andy took his kids to school.  Once again, I was struck by Andy’s ability to convey both the frustration and the contentment of his life.

Andy interspersed his readings with descriptions of the expeditions he was on at the time, and he showed a selection of pictures backed by music.  This provided a vital opportunity to relax a little, to stop concentrating so hard and just enjoy the story told by the images.  Many of the photos were provided by Ian Parnell (who Andy jokingly describes as “a terrible climber, even worse than me”) and so these aren’t just holiday snaps, they’re either beautifully composed, or they are a snatched picture which shows the extreme nature of their predicament, whether that’s the climbing, the weather or another obstacle.

Andy closed the talk with a chapter from the book about a climb in the Alps with a partner who he doesn’t identify (although he accidentally does). This demonstrated a problem with his new format for some in his audience.  Andy had opened by saying that he wouldn’t talk much about climbing, despite the audience being full of climbers.  However, for those in the audience who weren’t climbers (like the friends I excitedly brought along), not talking about expeditions removed the context in which to understand his readings; he showed them only one side of the family/career debate.  With his final section, Andy talked about a single trip, arriving in France, the preparations, the climb itself and the final outcome, and with that, all of his earlier readings (and his reputation as something of a standup comedian) were put into context.  Afterwards, my non-climber friends identified this final reading as the most interesting and resonant for them – and this should give Andy the confidence that there’s still a big audience for stories like that.

Andy continues to reach out to a new audience, as well as bringing along the audience he’s already found.  The new book and talk promise to be more successful than the last, with only a few teething problems to resolve, and it is exciting to be able to see the work as it develops.  Andy’s reputation, as a mountaineer, writer and speaker, is sure to grow and grow.