Regions Of The Heart

Regions Of The Heart, the biography of climber Alison Hargreaves by Ed Douglas and David Rose has just been published in paperback by Penguin priced at £6.99.

Sadly Hargreaves was better known for her death on K2 in 1995 than ever during her short life despite some impressive climbing credentials including a raft of hard British female first ascents - the media seized on the issue of her being a mother with two young children and villified her accordingly.

It would have been massively easy for Douglas and Rose to dive in on either side of the debate, but instead they produced a well-written, thoroughly researched book which simply and movingly tells Alison's story from childhood through to the harsh end when she was caught out by a savage high altitude storm after summiting K2.

The tragedy of it, is that for all the media's concentration on her supposed lack of responsibility, in fact Hargreaves' attempt on her final mountain was driven by nothing so much as a desire to build a secure future for her children away from her fractious relationship with husband Jim Ballard.

It's not a gripping book in the sense that it drags you into the adrenaline of the cliffs and mountains, but the human drama implicit in the gentle unfolding of the story is just as engrossing. At the time the fraught, abusive nature of her relationship with husband Jim Ballard was all but invisible, but in the book it effectively takes centre stage, putting Alison's climbing in a new context. Just as fascinating is the light it sheds on her absolute determination and commitment as a climber.

It's a sad story yes, this tale of a woman who was perhaps, like many of us, better than climbing than at life, but an intriguing read that managed to eclipse the shuffling boredom of a three-hour trip on Virgin Rail. Definitely worth a look.