Jim Perrin

Jim Perrin in North Wales in 1984

Jim Perrin (born 30 March 1947) is an English rock climber and travel writer. He was born Ernest James Perrin ^[1] in Manchester, England. As a writer, he has made regular contributions on travel, mountaineering, literature and the environment to a number of newspapers and climbing magazines. As a climber, he has developed many new routes, particularly in North Wales and on the sea cliffs of Pembrokeshire, as well as making solo ascents of a number of difficult established routes.

He has won the Boardman Tasker prize twice, first for Menlove (1985), his biography of John Menlove Edwards, and again as joint winner (alongside Andy Cave's 'Learning to Breathe) for The Villain (2005), a biography of Don Whillans.^[2] Several of his other books have been shortlisted for this award. He has won the Mountaineering History Prize at Banff Mountain Book Festival for "The Villain" (2005), and the Mountaineering Literature Prize for "The Climbing Essays" (2006), which was also short-listed for the Wales Book of the Year Award. His "Shipton and Tilman: The Great Decade of Himalayan Mountaineering" won the Kekoo Naoroji Prize for Himalayan Literature in 2014. He is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy and an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University.

For many years he has contributed mountaineering obituaries for The Guardian (for example, on Patrick Monkhouse, Lord Hunt, Sir Jack Longland, Sir Edmund Hillary, Brede Arkless,John Streetly, David Cox, Kevin FitzGerald, Robin Hodgkin and others.^[3]

He had seven children with seven different partners. His eldest son Will, a talented and well respected climber, died in 2004 aged 24.

Bibliography

Below is a partial list of books by Perrin listed by Amazon as in print (on 7 November 2016):

• Mirrors in the Cliffs (ed.) (1983), Diadem
• ″H.W. Tilman: The Seven Mountain-Travel Books" (1985), Diadem, edited and introduced.
• ″Eric Shipton: The Six Mountain-Travel Books″ (1985), Diadem, edited and introduced.
• Menlove: Life of John Menlove Edwards (1985), Gollancz, (second edition, 1993, Ernest Press)
• Spirits of Place (1997), Gomer Press
• "Visions of Snowdonia"(1997), BBC Publications
• River Map (2001), Gomer Press
• Travels with the Flea: and other Eccentric Journeys (2002), Neil Wilson publishing.
• The Villain: The Life of Don Whillans (2005), Hutchinson
• The Climbing Essays (2006), Neil Wilson Publishing.
• West: A Journey through the Landscapes of Loss (2010), Atlantic Books
• Snowdon: The Story of a Welsh Mountain (2012), Gomer Press
• Shipton and Tilman: The Great Decade of Himalayan Exploration" (2013), Hutchinson
• A Snow Goose, and other utopian fictions" (2013), Cinnamon Press
• A William Condry Reader" (ed.) (2015), Gomer Press
• The Hills of Wales" (2016), Gomer Press

The following are out of print:

• On and Off the Rocks (1986), Gollancz
• Yes, To Dance (1990), Oxford Illustrated Press

References