Jerry Moffat has been a climbing hero for several generations of climbers, when I started climbing he was into hard bouldering, and making iconic films link one summer, stick it, stone love, buoux 8c and the real thing. Often with his strong man sidekick Ben Moon, this pair have set climbing a light over the years. So it was great to here that Jerry had finally penned a biography, Revelations.
Now I have never meet Jerry, but a good friend of mine who when i was at college used to sit down and watch obsessively all the films mentioned above, is now a good friend of Jerry’s. They meet at Tom’s home break of solva, just outside Saint David’s, and Tom informs me that despite not really climbing that much anymore he can still crank it out, but is just as into catching the perfect wave.
Now whilst I haven’t started reading his book yet, my house mate brought and finished it yesterday, and kept me informed about Jerry’s progress through climbing. From his start at St David’s College in Llandudno, a school that is still famed for its Outdoor Education programme, through to making the first ascents of routes like Master’s Wall, Liquid Amber as well as many others, along with early repeats of previous desperate route.
One of the themes missing from this book seems to be the lack of any mention of the word work through most of it. Which when my housemate brought it up half way through the book I remember a TV programme, that might shed light on the question of how Jerry funded his lifestyle.
I had gone into have my tyres change, I probably had a MOT the next day! Whilst I sat and waited for the work to be carried out I heard a voice eminate from the TV that I recognised from somewhere. Turning around I realise that it was Jerry and his partner on some property ladder programme, there was some mention of there portfolio, which lets just say was reasonable impressive for a rock climber. So Jerry seems to be a property tycoon, whether the cash came from family who knows? May be I’ll find out in the book of Revelations!
Although I have yet to read the book, the response and the sheer depth and breadth of his climbing, make it a book I look forward to reading, although I still have to battle through Andy Kirkpatricks book first. Jerry is, after all many climbers hero and a legend in his own life time.