Jim Perrin (born 30 March 1947), is an English rock climber and travel writer.

Biography

Jim Perrin was born Ernest James Perrin in Manchester, England, to a family of Huguenot descent. His father played rugby league for Salford in the late 1930s. As a writer, Perrin has made regular contributions on travel,

mountaineering Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, a ...

, literature, art, and the environment to a number of newspapers and climbing magazines, and continues to do so as a country diarist for '' The Guardian'' and a columnist in '' The Great Outdoors'' magazine. As a climber, he has developed many new routes, particularly on the Derbyshire

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for pa ...

outcrops, in North Wales and on the sea cliffs of

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

, as well as making solo ascents of a number of difficult established routes, and also free ascents of previously aid-assisted climbs in Wales and Scotland. 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 Brede Arkless (née Boyle) (10 August 1939 – 18 March 2006) was a British female rock climber and mountaineer, and was actively involved in the all-women's climbing movement. Life and family She was born in Manchester, England, of Dublin pare ...

, John Streetly, David Cox, Kevin FitzGerald, Robin Hodgkin, and others), and also for '' The Daily Telegraph''. He also wrote many essays for ''The Daily Telegraph'' travel supplement, most of which are collected in ''Travels with the Flea''.

Awards

Perrin has twice won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, 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.List of previous Boardman Tasker prize winners
Several of his other books have been shortlisted for this award. He has won the Mountaineering History Prize at

Banff Mountain Book Festival The Banff Mountain Book Festival is an annual book festival held at the Banff Centre in Banff, Canada. Grand Prize * 1994: Chris Bonington and Audrey Saukeld (editors), ''Heroic Climbs'' * 1995: Thomas Wharton, ''Icefields'' * 1996: Stephen Ven ...

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,The Welsh Academy
/ref> an Honorary Fellow of

Bangor University , former_names = University College of North Wales (1884–1996) University of Wales, Bangor (1996–2007) , image = File:Arms_of_Bangor_University.svg , image_size = 250px , caption = Arms ...

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 * ''Spirits of Place'' (1997),

Gomer Press Gomer Press (Welsh: ''Gwasg Gomer'') is a family printing (and formerly publishing) company based in Llandysul, west Wales. It was the largest publishing house in Wales. History The company was first established in 1892 and began as a general sto ...

* ''Visions of Snowdonia'' (1997), BBC Publications * ''River Map'' (2001, 2nd edition 2002), Gomer Press * ''Travels with the Flea... and Other Eccentric Journeys'' (2001, second edition 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 __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book ...

: * ''Menlove: Life of John Menlove Edwards'' (1985),

Gollancz Gollancz may refer to: * Gollancz (surname), a Polish-Jewish surname * Victor Gollancz Ltd, a former British publishing house, now used as an imprint by the Orion Publishing Group See also * Gołańcz Gołańcz (german: Gollantsch) is a town ...

(second edition, 1993, Ernest Press) * ''On and Off the Rocks'' (1986), Gollancz * ''Yes, To Dance '' (1990),

Oxford Illustrated Press The Oxford Illustrated Press Ltd was a book publishing company associated with Oxford, England. The company was based in Shelley Close, Headington Headington is an eastern suburb of Oxford, England. It is at the top of Headington Hill overloo ...

References

External links

Jim Perrin at The Guardian

Interview by David Roberts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perrin, Jim 1947 births Living people Sportspeople from Manchester British rock climbers British travel writers Boardman Tasker Prize winners English male non-fiction writers 20th-century English male writers English non-fiction outdoors writers