Architect scaled great heights at Cambridge...

31 October 2007

NARES Craig, now about to turn 90, with an original copy of The Night Climbers of Cambridge, which has just been republished

NIGHT CLIMBING is something of an urban myth - but for one Muswell Hill resident his youth spent scaling Cambridge University buildings is the topic of a cult book.

Nares Craig, who celebrates his 90th birthday on Friday, was part of an underground climbing group at Cambridge in the late 1930s.

NARES Craig perched atop a university building is one of the stunning images in The Night Climbers of Cambridge

Mr Craig, known as a radical architect and left-winger, is father of ex-Haringey councillor Lucy Craig and now lives at The Meadow residential home in Muswell Hill.

But in his youth, he scaled college towers with a group of dare-devil climbers who took pictures of themselves with early photographic equipment.

These were made into a book, The Night Climbers of Cambridge, which became a classic but rare find for Cambridge undergraduates. A new edition was launched on Friday.

Mr Craig became interested in climbing at public school after becoming "absolutely sick of team sports like cricket and football".

When he got to university his climbing skills were in demand and a man approached him about taking part in the book.

Mr Craig said: "It was the sort of time when nothing surprised you, almost anything could happen."

Mr Craig is in many of the book's most impressive shots, including one showing him perched atop King's College Chapel.

He and another veteran were later caught by college authorities on a climb not detailed in the book.

Mr Craig said: "O'Hara Murray and I were regrettably caught and we were sent down - which simply means expelled. I had only been there a few months when it happened. They let me back the following year."

Mr Craig and the other climbers had great respect for the buildings and took care not to damage them, only once dislodging a cornice which fell on Mr Craig's arms - he still has the scars.

Later he became concerned that the book - often used as a guide to clandestine climbs - would lead to accidents.

"I was worried that before long somebody would be killed," he said. "So I warned the authorities at King's Chapel and I suggested they should fill the space up, which they did eventually. I think it has been climbed again but in a different way."

Mr Craig gave up climbing after university and went on to fight during World War Two, and design blocks of flats using a pre-cast concrete technique he invented.

Looking back on his youthful antics, he said: "I loved climbing and it amused me to do it, but that was my misspent youth. What I'm far more proud of is the building work I did later.