![]() ![]() It is an eye-opener into the mind of a daredevil for those of us whose idea of risky business would be, as Victoria Wood put it, to step on to an escalator in a soft-soled shoe. This bonkers ripping yarn of derring-don’t is a hell of a ride. And that’s a story that rarely ends well. The boy from Bradford for whom Mount Everest’s icy peak was a shining light, the flame to which the Moth was inexorably drawn. The profile Caesar builds is compelling, colourful and warm – of a complex, contradictory man with admirable self-belief and a healthy disregard for class boundaries and national borders. Wilson’s story is bonkers, but also beautiful. Not only does set out almost obsessively to get to understand Wilson and his motivation, he also wants to understand his own almost-obsession. ![]() Perhaps Wilson is to Everest and aviation what Crowhurst is to sailing alone around the world. In another kind of adventure in which chaps took themselves to the most unforgiving places, Donald Crowhurst’s story is a more intriguing one than that of Robin Knox-Johnston, who succeeded where Crowhurst failed. Where once he was dismissed as a madman and an embarrassment, now Wilson can be properly celebrated. ![]() ![]() How has this story slipped into a crevasse in the glacier of time, lying frozen and largely forgotten for so long? Perhaps the world is better now at embracing eccentricity and – (not too much of a) spoiler alert! – failure than it was. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |