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Learning to Breathe

At the age of sixteen, Andy Cave followed in his father`s and grandfather`s footsteps and became a miner – one of the last recruits into a dying world. Every day he would descend 3,000 feet into Grimethorpe pit. But at weekends Andy escaped from the pithead to a very different world – testing his nerve on the cliffs and mountains around Britain, and forging endearing friendships with his new companions. Enduring the 1984-85 miners` strike – the guilt, the broken friendships, the poverty – Andy continued to indulge his passion. In 1986, after much soul searching, he quit his job as a miner in order to devote himself to mountaineering. At the same time he decided to educate himself, acquiring almost from a standing start academic qualifications including a PhD in socio-linguistics. This extraordinary twin odyssey is graphically recalled in Learning to Breathe. In the Himalaya in 1997, Andy achieved a courageous first ascent on one of the steepest and most difficult summits in the world – the north face of Changabang. Seventeen days later, he and only two of his team-mates crawled into base camp, frostbitten, emaciated and traumatised. His account of this terrifying experience provides a dramatic climax to this compelling story. Learning to Breathe is, first and foremost, a lively and humorous memoir, written with energy and insight, about two very different groups of people, each navigating equally inhospitable worlds. Finally on a larger scale, it is an examination of our ability to draw on inner reserves and the strength of others.

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