Joint Winners For Boardman Tasker

This year's Boardman-Tasker Prize for mountain literature has joint winners in the shape of Jim Perrin and Andy Cave for 'The Villain' and 'Learning to Breathe' respectively.

It's the first time since 1991 that the prize has had two winners and the judges stressed that this year's shortlist was of a 'particularly high quality' describing the two winning books as 'quite outstanding'.

The Villain is Jim Perrin's long-awaited and meticulously researched biography of Don Whillans, one of the greatest and most controversial of post-war British climbers, with a spectacular record in the UK, the Alps and the Himalaya.

By contrast, Andy Cave - ambushed by camera below - has a low profile outside the climbing world, but is recognised as one of Britain's best climbers with some desperately hard ascents to his credit including a notorious route on Changabang with Brendan Murphy.

Learning to Breathe is the story of how, as a striking miner in Thatcher's Britain, he discovered an aptitude and passion for climbing and decided to make it his life embarking on a series of hard climbs across the world.

Now earning his living as a mountain guide and a sponsored climber with Lowe Alpine, Cave - who we've just seen in Kendal - is clearly delighted to have won. He's already spent the prize money on a carbon fibre-framed Italian road rocket of a bicycle and is about to head off for the Banff Festival with hopes of maybe garnering another award. He's also sold the German and Italian publication rights to the book.

A thoroughly nice guy and a deserving winner who was interviewed in the Observer earlier this year.

More about the Boardman Tasker Prize at www.boardmantasker.com