One Man's Mountains: Essays and Verses

One Man's Mountains: Essays and Verses by Patey, Tom. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780898865424.

This autobiography offers a glimpse into the mind of Tom Patey, a man whose contributed greatly to modern climbing. He was killed in May 1970, abseiling from a sea stack off the north coast of Scotland. He was 38. People outside the climbing world knew of him as the only man who launched himself into space during the televised climb of the Old Man of Hoy. Inside the climbing fraternity everyone knew of him. It was when studying medicine at Aberdeen University that Tom first showed his talent as an extraordinary climber and started his long series of epic first ascents. He also took part in the four-man 1956 British expedition to climb the 28,800-foot Mustagh Tower, a mountain that many people regarded as unclimbable; they conquered it - Tom, John Hartog, Ian McNaught-Davies and the legendary Manchester plumber Joe Brown.