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An evening with Dan Richards
July 10 @ 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
£10.00 – £15.00
Dan Richards will be in conversation with Phillipa Cherryson on July 10th in the Book-ish Loft, discussing the book ‘Climbing Days’.
The event will take place at 7:30pm and a book signing will follow.
A forgotten classic of 1920s mountaineering literature by Dorothy Pilley, which broke new ground for women in a sport dominated by men – with an introduction from her great-great nephew, Dan Richards.
When Dorothy Pilley first began climbing in the 1910s, female mountaineers were seen as a dangerous liability, their achievements ignored, unrecorded or disbelieved. Undeterred, Dorothy proved herself on the vertiginous slopes of Wales, Scotland and the Lake District before tackling rock faces in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, Mount Fuji and the Himalayas. Her tireless championing of fellow women climbers and her own trailblazing example helped establish female alpinists as serious mountaineers with impressive records on bravery, skill and endurance.
First published in 1935, Climbing Days tells a daredevil tale of adventure, near-death slips and rapturous achievement in high places, interleaved with moments highlighting the particular challenges of being a woman in a sport seen as the province of men.
Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days (a biography of the amazing life and climbs of his great grand aunt, Dorothy Pilley), and Outpost. He has written for the Guardian, Economist, Caught by the River, Monocle and Quietus. Dan teaches creative non-fiction at the National Centre for Writing and Arvon Foundation. His next book, Overnight, is set to be published in March 2025.
Dorothy Pilley (1894–1986) was a trailblazing writer and mountaineer who led the way for women’s climbing and co-founded the Pinnacle Club for women in 1921. She climbed ridges and sheer faces around the world, creating a legacy that is admired to this day. In 1928, together with her husband I.A. Richards and Swiss Guides Joseph and Antoine Georges, she pioneered a route up the north- north-west ridge of the Dent Blanche in Switzerland. Climbing Days, a celebrated memoir of her early life and climbs, was published in 1935.
Phillipa Cherryson is senior digital editor for Saga Magazine. Phillipa has been a journalist for 30 years, writing for local and national newspapers, UK magazines and reporting onscreen for ITV. In her spare time she loves the outdoors and is a trainee mountain leader and Ordnance Survey Champion.