The Villain

Don Whillans has an iconic significance for generations of climbers. His
epoch-making first ascent of Annapurna`s South Face, achieved with Dougal
Haston in 1970, remains one of the most impressive climbs ever made, a
standard to which all modern Himalayan climbers aspire – but behind this and
all his other formidable achievements lies a tough, recalcitrant reality: the
character of the man himself. At twenty, Whillans was 5 foot 4 inches tall, a
working-class lad with the build of a miniature Atlas.

Within a year of entering the climbing world in 1950 he had acquired parallel
reputations of great skill and daring on the one hand, and as a hell-raiser, a
scrapper and a savage-tongued wit on the other – the Villain of the title, who
was turned down for a Queen`s Birthday Honour because of a violent fracas with
several policemen.
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