Space Below My Feet

Description

In 1945, when Gwen Moffat was in her twenties, she deserted from her post as a driver and dispatch rider in the Army and went to live rough in Wales and Cornwall, climbing and living on practically nothing. She hitch-hiked her way around, travelling from Skye to Chamonix and many places in between, with all her possessions on her back, although these amounted to little more than a rope and a sleeping bag. When the money ran out, she worked as a forester, went winkle-picking on the Isle of Skye, acted as the helmsman of a schooner and did a stint as an artist's model. And always there were the mountains, drawing her away from a 'proper' job. Throughout this unique story, there are acutely observed accounts of mountaineering exploits as Moffat tackles the toughest climbs and goes on to become Britain's leading female climber - and the first woman to qualify as a mountain guide.

Gwen Moffat was the first woman to qualify as a mountain guide in the UK and is one of the greatest female climbers this country has ever produced. She is also a prolific writer and novelist, with more than 30 books to her name.

As a story of climbing and compulsive love of mountains, SPACE BELOW MY FEET is magnificent * OBSERVER * This book is not an account of love between men and women, it is the testimony of the love one woman has for air and light and splendid, rocky, isolated spires; of wakening and feeling the hot sun on a sleeping bag, of being in a hostel watching the English getting up to open the window and the Continentals getting up to close it. Even if you have never climbed a mountain, you will enjoy this story of a brave, restless woman * SUNDAY TIMES * A series of love affairs with impossible places ... She owns nothing. She needs nothing * DAILY HERALD * In piquant contrast to the well-off, well-connected donnish women climbing writers of the last generation, she shows herself with painful honesty in SPACE BELOW MY FEET as rebel and vagabond * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *