I first met Tom on my first day at university, fate had put us a few doors apart in Seiriol Hostel, in what is now know as George Site, University of Bangor. It quickly became apparent that Tom could turn his skills to almost anything. Amongst other things I have seen Tom Pole Vault, Juggle 5 balls and clubs, balance a Kayak on his chin, play various sing-a-long tunes on the piano, total rip up the surf, climb E5, Hang 5 on his long board, do a somersault on a wake board, solo across a high slack-line and to be honest the list goes on.
The real killer is that he is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He came up to North Wales this week for work, and we met up on one day for a bit of climbing. Now Tom lives just outside St David’s and mainly surf’s now. For the numerous climbers that now surf, you’ll probably run into him if the surf is up around pembroke. However up here I took him out into the Slate quarries which were our proving grounds during University, some 10 years ago or more. After warming up on the transform Dali’s Hole, which blew him away just how many routes and how convient the climbing was. I took him to the best of the retro bolted routes in the quarries Off The Beaten Track E3 5c.
Despite not having climbed for ages, Tom styled his way up the route. A nice revenge after tom threw me on Rock Idol, after I had not climbed for 6 months due a bad back!
Despite being the perfect man there is one thing that another of our mutual friends point out, ‘at least we aren’t as grey as him, yet!’. It’s always the small victories that keeps us going|!