Colin Kirkus

Colin Fletcher Kirkus was a British rock climber, born in Liverpool on 18 September 1910, who climbed extensively in Wales, the Alps and the Himalaya. He made pioneering routes on the Welsh cliff Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, which Jack Longland called Colin's Cliff, and his series of new routes there was unmatched until Joe Brown emerged about twenty years later. His instruction book Let's Go Climbing! inspired Joe Brown to take up the sport. In 1933 he joined Marco Pallis's five man expedition to the Gangotri area of the Himalaya, where he and Charles Warren made an alpine style ascent of the peak now known as Bhagirathi III, 6,454 metres high. During the Second World War he served as a navigator in the RAF and was killed on a sortie to Bremen on the night of 13 and 14 September 1942.