I know I had done Firle Beacon in Sussex by 1954, when I was 10. My father's family was large and we used to go up it every August bank holiday; an odd collection of cousins, uncles, aunts and other family grotesques. Val, we estimate, climbed it first in about 1977 after we learned that we were moving to Aberdeen, a place neither of us had ever seen. In fact I think we had only been to Scotland on a couple of day trips. We remember observing then that Firle Beacon was one hell of a long way from Aberdeen. It still is.
