Robin Cook R.I.P

Unless you've been up a mountain over the weekend and only just got down, you'll have heard the sad news that former Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook died at the weekend after collapsing while walking on Ben Stack in Sutherland.

According to the Guardian, Mr Cook, 59, was given CPR on the mountain for 45 minutes by his wife and another walker before being helicoptered to hospital in Inverness. Cook was a keen walker and a politician of rare principle who resigned from the cabinet in 2003 over his opposition to the Iraq war.

If you want to know more about his polical career then there's plenty to go at on the main news sites. We were struck however, by a quote from Cook in today's Guardian. Apparently while giving an interview from Top Withins, on the the Pennine Way earlier this year, he told the interviewer:

"One of the great things about having snow up to your knees, is that it is hard to have your mind on anything more than how you are going to get up the next ridge."

Something that will strike a chord with walkers and climber everywhere. A thoroughly decent man and a mountain lover, may he rest in peace.