User:Wikibob/Sandbox4

background for Touching the Void - some posts by Richard Hawking, the man who waited in the tent for the two climbers to return.

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0379557/board/thread/9353905?d=9379999#9379999

the whole thread

Richard Hawking's photos of the filmsite

more from Richard neither in DVD nor books

<!-- by - Nancy-Olli (Thu Mar 18 19:01:03) Ignore this User | Report Abuse UPDATED Thu Mar 18 19:01:57 Richard obviously wants his privacy back. Can't blame him.

However, he did throw a lot of light on events surrounding the events depicted in this film, with no detriment to him, so I'm putting back what he said for the sake of truth and understanding:

1- Post of Fri Mar 5: "To satisfy anyone's curiosity I would just like to let you know a little of what went on after the return to base camp.

Joe came back several hours before some of the local people were due to arrive at camp with a couple of donkeys to carry our gear back to the nearest town. After filling him with tea I ran down to the hut where the locals were waiting and had to explain in crappy Spanish that the climber wasn't dead any more, and we needed a mule as well as the donkeys. Understandably they were a bit freaked out by this, but did bring a mule with them - shame it had an evil streak!

A long time haggling to make the contract (a necessity, even in this situation), while their sisters were stealing our cooking equipment! The swiss army knife that cut the rope was included in the stuff we gave them to carry us out - no way we wanted to keep it.

An awful couple of days walking down, and found the nearest town under police/army occupation as Sendero Lminoso were about to attack. We had to radio down to Lima to get a car to drive up and get us. the driver was an alcoholic maniac - very nearly the death of us!

We left Joe on the doorstep of a hospital awaiting admittance and went off to eat some fried sweet potato sandwiches.

It's a shame I was cut down to some odd sound-bites in the film, I wonder where the other 10 hours went to! I guess I wan't toeing-the-line enough.

Some photos I took while filming are here: http://homepage.mac.com/rrhawks/Peru/index.htm

Oh yes... I forgot to mention that I am the slightly chubby cynical chap called Richard who pops up from time to time in the film."

2 - Post of Sun Mar 7: "Blimey, suspicious aren't you!!!"

3 - Post of Sun Mar 7 (2nd): "Yes indeed, I didn't think I would be back there again - but mainly because of the chaos that had descended onto the area. Sendero Luminoso were on a killing spree, and a previous run-in with them that I had endured did rather make me want to keep my distance from them.

When I did go back the insurers for the film insisted that i shouldn't go back to the very same places I had been to in 1985, as it was too dangerous - I might fall over or something! You can guess how much notice I took of this directive...

I will get round to doing captions, or something, for the photos ... but I always seem to be too busy."

4 - Post of Mon Mar 8: "Yes... there is a strange difference in the versions of what happended to the knife. Simon (who's knife it was) and I are sure it was part of the deal with the porters, Joe is sure he donated it to Gary.

It was a long long time ago, so discrepancies in memeories etc are inevitable."

5 - Post of Wed Mar 10: "Indeed the director did screw me... or at least the financers who were calling the shots did.

The difference was I was interviewed a few days after filming in Peru, the others were interviewd months before. Filming was, well........ 'difficult'. The director was none too keen on our hero when I was interviewed, hence the line of questioning. The backers didn't want their neat package to have nasty rough edges, so ............ you get the film you saw.

I had been doing some gnarly stuff in Peru, and I looked on this as being a bit of a holiday, in spite of what happened. As for the magnitude of the events... it was just some *beep* that happened (If you'll pardon my quoting another poster on the forum.)

I am thankful that I live in Tokyo, and am little exposed to the bull**** that is flying around."

So there you have it. And, by the way, if Richard objects to this, I will for honor's sake be obligated to pull it down, too. (Catch it while you can.) -->