Pex Hill legends Lew Brown and Jim Hewson made a strong and technical team on the crags throughout the 80's and 90's.
Everyone has a favourite Lew story. For example: having his gear stolen from besides his motor bike near Pan Zawn; banging his head on a cupboard door whilst cooking in May Cottage; being stripped naked by the Porkies in Pembroke and wearing just a polythene bag. Hopefully some people will add more details below.
My favourite is from a ski trip in the late 90's. There was a large group of us skiing in Les Portes du Soleil. From the top of a run we all decided that we had to get a particular lift at the bottom. So we all skied to the bottom and got on the chair lift. We all arrived at the top of the lift, apart from Lew. So Margaret skied back down to find him, whilst we waited. She returned, sans Lew. So, we spent the rest of the day skiing without him. Finally, at the end of the day, who should we see skiing past us, whilst we're all chilling out? Yes Lew. He looked straight at us and completely ignored us all. We went chasing after him and caught him up. He told us that he didn't know where we'd all gone and during the day he'd been cursing us all individually! We all cracked up laughing, it was so typical of Lew.
Back in the early 80's there were generally five "climbing speeds" at Pex:
1) Phil Davidson, very fast, necessary because of poor footwork but very effective due to supreme ability and confidence;
2) Joe Healey, pretty fast and precise due to a superb level of natural ability and style;
3) Tony Mitchell, a combination of massive stamina levels, technique and precision that was intended to look so good;
4) Mike Owen, getting towards ridiculously slow, because everything had to be so precise, any slight mistake would end with a slip and failure;
5) and there was Jim Hewson, perhaps the most laid-back climber ever to have climbed at Pex. Haha.
Who's turn will it be tomorrow?
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| Lew Brown at Reecastle Crag, in the Lakes, 1986. Photo by Elaine Owen. |
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| Lew Brown. Photo by Elaine Owen. |
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| Lew Brown at Reecastle Crag, in the Lakes, 1986. Photo by Elaine Owen. |
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| Jim Hewson and the late Tom Hurley, at the end of the day at Mother Carey's Kitchen, 1982. Photo by Elaine Owen. |
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| Elaine and Jim Hewson climbing at Seamstress Slab in 1987. Steve Foxley photo bombing. |
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