After an eleven year hiatus an article was published in Climber and Hillwalker which contained seriously offensive material concerning Jim Curran: the author of this insulting article was Jim Perrin! How strange that he seemed to have set up a vendetta against his former fellow-climber; at the least, to have been busily conducting what could only be described as a smear campaign.

Did he feel guilt (or any remorse, we wonder) about what obviously had been his cavalier handling of that climb in 1979? Perhaps he was aware that although, so far, Jim Curran had not publicly discussed it he might yet write about it, giving his accurate account of what had taken place that day on Mewsford Point: did Jim Perrin — as attack is thought by some to be the best form of defence — decide to write the highly questionable (and, as it turned out, actually libellous) article to pre-empt any such account?

We mentioned in our earlier posting that Jim Perrin had not, until then, written anything negative about that climb, nor had he ever indicated previously that there had been anything of which to complain…

Jim goes on to describe how others had been reporting, and repeating to him for some time, the disgraceful slurs being spoken about him, it would seem at every opportunity, by Jim Perrin. It was only, finally, when this article with the insulting contents written by Jim Perrin was published in the climbing magazine — and as we wrote in our original posting on the subject: Jim Perrin Loses a Court Case?…  ‘most vilely impugning his reputation’ — that Jim, strongly supported by his friends and colleagues (as he fully enlarged upon in his book) decided he could no longer afford to dismiss or ignore Jim Perrin’s attempts to slight him; neither could he simply brush away this buzzing fly.

Not only was Jim Curran a climber of significance, an artist and an author, he was also a Himalayan film-maker of some repute. He wrote:

‘…that [his] very real concern now was that as a climbing camera-man often employed by TV companies, I could have a problem with insurance. The word ‘incompetence’ and phrase ‘put the fear of God into me’ could be cited as evidence that a TV company should not have employed me if, in the case of an accident, blame was attached to me.’

Jim Curran had decided: Enough was Enough.

Jac’s sisters.