Donald Desbrow Whillans

Donald Desbrow Whillans was one of the greatest British mountaineers of the 1950s-1970s generation. He was born on the outskirts of Manchester, in a neighbourhood that had become 'dodgy' in those years due to the expansion of the metropolis. The family's move to another, quieter but still working-class area did not earn him a golden childhood. The street, small gangs, tests of courage and brawls were his teachers in life, although it must be emphasised that these terms referring to the 1930s, must take on a very different meaning from the one we now attribute to them, perhaps by mentally retracing the headlines of the crime news. Don was in any case a difficult boy, with a proud and indomitable character, intolerant of discipline and of the school institution, the usefulness of which he did not see. He discovered the allure of nature after the war and took to exploring Derbyshire every Sunday, first on his own, then with a Boy Scout troop, finally in the company of a former officer whose name he never knew. The end of compulsory schooling and his first work experience as a plumber coincided with the discovery of climbing, done so, self-taught, with the aid of a rope of exaggerated thickness, but too short, ignoring all rules of use. He climbed by pure instinct a route called Atherton Brothers in the sandstone walls of Shining Clough, then classified as 'very difficult'. Evidently his compact and muscular physical structure, his indomitable courage and his great desire to accept and overcome new challenges made him the ideal candidate for spectacular technical progression, and he soon became one of the best climbers on the English crags. On 26 September 1951, the Rock and Ice Club was born, whose founders included many names that have gone down in mountaineering history: Nat Allen, Joe Brown, Ron Moseley, to name but a few. Don Whillans was among them. The R&I club broke down the social wall that separated proletarian climbers like Don and the 'well-to-do' youngsters from university sports clubs. As the first effect produced by this association, our Don discovered the Alps, spending his first holiday in Chamonix. We cannot fail to list the most important exploits of his career, obviously conducted well away from England. As we read on, however, we must also remember that to their mountaineering difficulty must be added a kind of 'added value' in the form of Don's continuing precarious economic conditions: throughout his life he never had a steady job; he bought all the necessary equipment out of his own pocket (the sponsor philosophy had not yet been born); he worked hard at all kinds of construction sites and then quit his job and spent a few summers in the Alps, living in tents and eating little and badly (before tackling the Central Pylon of Frêney he spent several days in Switzerland, waiting for favourable conditions to climb the North Face of the Eiger, feeding himself with the snails and mushrooms he could find). When it came to tackling non-European expeditions, punctually the ritual of selling the motorbike came up again, an unmistakable sign of 'scraping the bottom of the barrel'. The list of his exploits that we propose is largely incomplete. We basically only mention the absolute firsts and a few non-European expeditions, but several of the repeats he carried out are probably of a higher technical level, not to mention the numerous routes of great difficulty on English crags or in Yosemite.

1954 - second repetition of the West Face of the Dru (with Joe Brown)
1954 - first ascent of the West Face of the Blaitière (with Joe Brown)
1957 - attempt on Masherbrum failed 100 m from the summit, in order not to risk the life of his companion, Joe Walmsley, who was at the end of his strength
1960 - Expedition to the Trivor (Karakorum), where, after carrying the heaviest workload, he fell ill on the eve of the attack on the summit
1961 - First ascent of the Central Pylon of Frêney, with Chris Bonington, Ian Clough and Jan Djugloz
1962 - First ascent of the Aiguille Poincenot in Patagonia, with Franck Cochrane
1963 - First ascent of the Central Tower of Paine, in Patagonia, with Chris Bonington
1970 - First ascent of the South Face of Annapurna, with Dougal Haston (Bonington expedition): it was the first ascent of a major Himalayan wall

After 1970 he also had the opportunity to participate in notable exploits: recall his two failed attempts at the Everest in 1971 and 1972 (during the former he spent 21 consecutive days above 7450 m!). But he was also in Africa (Ice-Window on Mount Kenya) and in Oceania, Mount Cook in New Zealand. He died in Oxford in 1985, on his return from a motorbike tour that had taken him to the Dolomites and Chamonix. He is remembered not only for his exploits, but also for his extraordinary humanity and outbursts of generosity that allowed him to save the lives of several mountaineers in difficulty. In 1993, a hut named 'Don Whillans Memorial Hut' was opened in the Roaches. It is located at the foot of the crags where Don met his friend Joe Brown, a partner in spectacular climbs, and where he met his wife Audrey. Salford, 18 May 1933 - Oxford, 4 August 1985

Bibliography

[[Don Whillans]]