Tales from the Smoke Room

The Pen y Gwryd Hotel: Tales from the Smoke Room, [ed] Rob Goodfellow, Jonathan Copeland and Peter O’Neill,  Gomer Press,  2016,  260p,  £14-99.  ISBN 9781785621499.

This is self-evidently not a conventional historical work. The book comprises over sixty different personal reminiscences and comments about a remote hotel in Snowdonia.  However it is a rather special hotel because since the 19^th Century it has attracted a clientele of mountaineers, most famous of whom were the team which conquered Everest on 29 May 1953. This is where part of their preparation was based and ever since it has been a place of pilgrimage for those who participated, and for those who wish to celebrate that monumental achievement, with Peter Hillary and Norbu Tenzing Norgay, the sons of the two men at the heart of that achievement, being contributors.

In fact this book is already a primary source for historians of mountaineering and rock-climbing as physical challenges because, in the course of the various testimonies, the culture of this leisure pursuit and sport is revealed. Various proprietors of the Pen y Gwryd Hotel emerge as key figures in how this activity has been encouraged and how it has grown, with mountain rescue provision being one of its by-products.

The introduction is by Jan Morris, a journalist-witness to the historic events of 1953, who stresses that it is the people who have been involved that give substance to its importance rather than the structure. One person whose name particularly attracted my attention was Chris Brasher, international famous as an athlete, who was a regular visitor and who revealed his love for the setting of the hotel by purchasing the former petrol station opposite to the hotel to enable its demolition so as to improve the vista from the hotel.

For me the journey from Capel Curig to Llanberis will never again be the same because this book has given me a new perspective on that locality.