English: Here is Joe Simpson signing my copy of Touching The Void, unquestionably the best written, most gripping, tale of survival against cruel pain and long, long odds. I now have four of Joe's books but Touching The Void is my only signed copy. Sadly although its an early edition - a second imprint of 1988 it has little value when compared with a first edition which I looked up before coming to Hexham and a few are on offer at over £1,000. I mentioned this to Joe and hoped he had a basement full of them, he told me he got six copies from the publisher and gave them all away. Amazing to learn that neither he nor the publisher thought it would sell beyond the incestuous world of mountaineering! The first print run was a mere 1,800 copies - hence their current high value. Wonderfully the book has never been out of print and worldwide sales now exceed 2,500,000 copies well done Joe. In this world its what counts, in the bank - large amounts...

His latest book being promoted at the Hexham Book Festival is a novel called: The Sound of Gravity, the synaesthesia in the title gives a clue to the florid overblown intensity of its central protagonist's described mindset. Its perhaps futile to compare a fictional work with the hard craft of mountaineering that Joe vividly chronicles in The Void, This Game of Ghosts and The Beckoning Silence etc. They spring from differing genre-pools but I've got these titles and can't help but make an unfavourable comparison.

He is a great guy came on-stage with the help of a walking-stick and made light of the physical injuries sustained over his long climbing career, as he said, its over and he survived at the top of the game, many did not. An ace climber, a good man and an excellent writer notwithstanding my carping about his novel. Salute him, I do, I do.