Autobiography of the Reverend Bob Shepton, an old-school adventurer in the spirit of sailing mountaineer HW Tilman, explorer Ranulph Fiennes, climber Chris Bonington and yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston, all of whom have been either friends of Bob's or an inspiration for his own exploits. He is indeed an ordained minister in the Church of England in his 70s, though it is hard to believe either, given the amount of time he devotes to sailing into the Arctic and making first ascents of inaccessible mountains.
Opening with the disastrous fire that destroyed his yacht whilst he was ice-bound in Greenland, the book travels back to his childhood growing up on his family's rubber plantation in Malaysia, moving back to England after his father was shot by the Japanese during the war, boarding school, the Royal Marines, and the church. We then follow Bob as he sails around the world with a group of school children, is dismasted off the Falklands, trapped in ice, and climbs mountains accessible only from iceberg-strewn water and with only sketchy maps available.
He won a Piolet d’Or in 2011, along with Sean Villanueva, Nicolas and Olivier Favressse and Ben Ditto for some fantastic big wall climbing in West Greenland. He also won the Yachtsman of the Year Award in 2013.
Monochrome maps and some colour photos.
By Bob Shepton.
Card cover, 20cm x 13cm, 204 pages.
Published 2014, this edition 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-4729-0587-1.