Today-June 18th- marks the 100th birthday of John Menlove Edwards. The Merseyside/Welsh climbing legend.
Readers of climbing literature will be familiar with the writings of John Menlove Edwards, and climbers fortunate enough to have enjoyed one of his routes in Wales can appreciate his status as one of Britain's leading climbers in the 30's and 40's Yet, there has always been an enigmatic quality about Menlove's character that couldn't be resolved simply by reading and climbing his legacy of literature and routes.
Jim Perrin's biography, Menlove: The Life of John Menlove Edwards, clarified and personified Menlove in a carefully researched, brightly written piece of scholarship that for the first time fully described the tragic and yet noble life of this great climber.
Briefly, Menlove established himself as one of Britain's leading climbers in the 30's and 40's with many important and difficult first ascents in North Wales. A talented, if difficult at times, writer, Menlove authored several guide books, essays, stories, and poems that are still important contributions to mountaineering literature. Professionally, Menlove was a psychiatrist, and by all accounts an excellent clinical practitioner. Setbacks caused by World War II and his desire to research ideas beyond the accepted province of his profession limited and frustrated him and his career.
Menlove's personal life also caused him great pains. He was a homosexual at a time when homosexuality was a criminal act in Britain, and he was morally opposed to World War II and registered as a conscientious objector in a country suffering from daily bombing and the imminent threat of Nazi invasion. Neither of these facets of Menlove's character was easily accepted by his peers or society in general. The cumulative effect of isolation and depression over his professional and social lives took their toll: Menlove committed suicide in 1958. Because of the sensitivity of relating events taking place many years ago that might have caused persons still living some embarrassment, Menlove's life has, until now, not been fully chronicled. A previous biography, Samson, in effect obscured rather than clarified some important events and relationships in Menlove's life. Perrin's exhaustive research (he, by his own estimation, worked on the biography for over ten years) and sensible approach to his subject yielded a first class biographical results. Perrin conveyed to the reader a full and sensitive treatment of Menlove, while tactfully - and correctly avoiding prurient sensationalism.The task that Perrin set out to accomplish in his biography was two-fold. First, to detail the events of Menlove's life accurately and in a historical sense.The second was to explain the enigma that was Menlove. Perrin accomplished this difficult task throughout the book, carefully building his case and supporting it thoroughly. Perrin's solution is that Menlove's upbringing and schooling led him to form a personal moral code and to keep its integrity intact, despite "terrible personal cost." Menlove's Christian background, simplified as a basic "Do unto others" credo, made him a profound believer in seeking the understanding and compassion, and above all, the tolerance, of others. Menlove also believed that he should be allowed to live his life unencumbered by the rigid, restrictive societal rules that dictated acceptance of a "norm" and rejection of any behaviours outside that norm, so long as he did nothing to antagonize, embarrass, or otherwise harm others around him. A live and let live approach, promoting mutual understanding and acceptance. Menlove was finally broken because he "stood out for that in which he believed" and ultimately was unable to conform to or join with a society incompatible with his own morality.”Stuart Pregnall©
Menlove: Jim Perrin: Ernest Press
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