John Peel Hits The Hills

Veteran scouse DJ and doyen of Saturday morning family radio programme Home Truths, the inimitable John Peel, has been out mountaineering...

Peel was making a film, 'The Reluctant Mountaineer' which will be the centrepiece of a new British Mountaineering Museum to be opened at the Rheged Discovery Centre, in the Lake District in July this year.

Unfortunately, according to the BBC 'Home Truths' site, the promised 'half way up a mountain' base camp actually ended up 25 yards from a car park 'near Aviemore' thanks to foot and mouth, however there are pics on the site of Peel with Chris Bonington and Everest veteran George Band in the snow.

The Museum itself looks interesting. It aims to tell the story of British mountaineering through the ages inclusing Whymper's infamous Matterhorn ascent and, of course, Everest. Plans for the display include artefacts known to every armchair mountaineer - Irvine's axe, Whympers tent, Hillary's oxygen set and high altitude suit, Mallory's tent and the Bonington collection.

The centre-piece film will, presumably, utilise the centre's vast 2D large-format cinema screen which is, and we quote: 'as big as six double decker buses, being 45 feet high and 60 feet wide and it took 7 men over two hours to install.' The film will reportedly 'take visitors on a journey which will chronicle everything from wearing the right protective clothing layers and using the right equipment, to a full mountaineering expedition.'

The Museum is being sponsored by outdoor brand Helly Hansen who see it as an ideal way of stressing their long involvement in producing technical mountain clothing.