TALK TIME: TERENCE 'BANJO' BANNONEverest climber and one of Ireland's most celebrated
mountaineers, talks to
EOIN BUTLER
The first question I have to ask is, where did you get the nickname?When I was seven or eight years old, we used to have a boxing ring outside in the Barley Field in Newry. One day, I got into a wee bit of a skirmish with another young fellow. His mother grabbed me by the ear and yelled, "I'll banjo you, Banjo Bannon!" – meaning she'd give me a clip. And for some reason, the name stuck.
You were born around the time the Troubles erupted, and many of your childhood friends were drawn into the conflict. Did it effect your childhood?Absolutely, I grew up in a housing estate in Newry, right on the border with south Armagh. So economically, socially and politically the walls were falling down around us. As a kid, British soldiers would constantly harass you. You'd be frightened, and fear soon turns to anger. Luckily, my mother got me into the boxing at an early age. It gave me something to focus on, other than what was happening on the streets.
Was mountain climbing a form of escapism for you?We live in a beautiful country and I had an appreciation for that from an early age. But it was a form of escapism, too. It's a different world up in the mountains. You're your own person and no one is telling you what to do. It was a great feeling to escape from the town and what was happening there.
You notched up some impressive climbs while working a low-paid factory job. How did you fund the expeditions?Local people, relations of mine have helped me out. I think they were glad that something positive was coming out of the area. When I first went to the Alps, I actually had a lorry driver from Dundalk drive me there for 10 Irish punts. I climbed Mont Blanc on my own the next day, which was a pretty stupid thing to do. But I was just so focused on what I was doing. I did the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, the Monte Rosa all on my own.
On Ben Nevis, you fell from a crevice and were left dangling by a rope attached to another climber. Did he consider cutting it?That was on the north face, when an avalanche knocked me off my perch. I ended up dangling upside down from a rope attached to a guy called Paul Clerkin. And yes, he considered cutting it. With the fall I'd taken, he assumed I was dead. He had the weight of me and all my equipment slowly suffocating him. He was rummaging for his penknife. Luckily, I managed to get upright and get a foothold in the rock.
It's like that book, 'Touching the Void'. Yes, when that came out, Paul Clerkin rang me up and said: 'Hey, have you read this thing?' But he was the hero that day.
Some people might have thought, God, for the sake of my friends and my family, I probably shouldn't subject myself to risk like this again.I'm not a religious person, Eoin, but I prayed to God. I thought, I shouldn't be here. It's Friday night. I should be at home disco dancing like anyone else. But I suppose it's like witnessing a horrific car accident. You see all the blood and the gore, and then you hop back into your own car and drive away.
There was controversy when the British mountaineer David Sharp was left to die near the summit of Everest in 2006. Mountaineers don’t seem to have the same comradeship as, say, sailors.
David Sharp was actually on our Everest expedition in 2003 . . . When we go climbing, we go as a team and we come back as a team. If we make it to the top, that’s a bonus. But paid commercial climbers are there for personal ambition. They’ve paid for the pleasure and they don’t really care about the next guy. The guides just see them as dollar signs. For 40 people to step over a dying man . . . That disgusts me. My good friend Ger McDonnell died on K2 in 2008 when he went to help three people. He could have left them, but he didn’t. That’s real mountaineering at its best.
Finally, how did it feel to finally conquer Everest in 2003?To be on the top of a mountain you've read about and thought about and dreamt about – it was like lifting the Sam Maguire. It was halfway between heaven and hell, I could actually see the curvature of the Earth. I sat down. It took me a lifetime to get here, I said, so now I'm going to relax. But first I took a photograph. Because where I come from, unless you can prove it, they'll call you a spoofer.
Ascending the Dream, by Terence "Banjo" Bannon and Lauren O'Malley, is published by Gill MacMillan this month