The True Story of a Brief and Courageous Life

Ollie

The exceptionally moving, brilliantly written story of the brief, courageous life of Ollie, the autistic son of one of Britain's most successful mountaineers, and of his effect on all who knew him.

A gripping, humbling account... This is a story of great courage, love, and extraordinary selflessness but most of all it is a celebration of the existence of a bright, lively, brave little boy

An uplifting tribute to a remarkable child

Ollie is not a bleak book. There are episodes of exuberant joy... More compelling than a climbing narrative

Stephen Venables is best known as the mountaineer who in 1988 became the first Briton to climb Everest without oxygen - one of many pioneering expeditions around the world. He began climbing while at Oxford in the early seventies, and has written eight books about his mountain travels, winning the Boardman Tasker Prize, the King Albert Medal and the Grand Award at Banff International Mountain Literature Festival. He has also appeared in several television documentaries and the IMAX movie, Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. He lives in Bath with his wife Rosie and Ollie's brother Edmond.

Like the swallows, our son Ollie came in the spring and left in the autumn. Dancing, singing, swooping - there was something birdlike about his energy, joy and laughter - but also the fleeting, enigmatic quality of his life. 
 
When he was two he lost all his speech, as autism turned his life - and ours - into a baffling challenge. Then at four he had to face a new challenge when he almost died from leukaemia. But chemotherapy worked its magic and he made a full recovery. He was a tough survivor and nothing seemed to dim his spirit: he could light up a room and energize everyone around him. So it was a huge shock, after several cancer-free years, when a fatal brain tumour was discovered. This time his body had had enough and he died very suddenly. He was twelve. 
 
Ollie had extraordinary courage and endurance. Time after time he bounced back, determined to enjoy life. He was obstinate, mischievous, playful, flirtatious, quixotic, funny. He generated - and continues to generate - huge amounts of laughter. And he was very beautiful. We always felt that if autism had not unravelled the wiring of his neural pathways, he would have achieved extraordinary things. 
 
This is the story of the journey we made with Ollie. Unlike a mountaineer, pursuing extreme experiences out of choice, he had difficulty thrust upon him: he was forced to be brave. For me, too, the journey was far more compelling than any expedition.

Escaping Disaster in the Himalaya

A Slender Thread

Venables is one of the best climbers in the world, and one of the best writers about climbing . . . Read it, but be careful. You may never be content just to climb the stairs again

The plummet experienced by Venables on the descent from his successful first ascent of Panch Chuli V in the Himalayas was of the kind most feared by climbers, the failure of an abseil point, an incident which usually guarantees death . . . Venables writes with understated elegance

Sensitive to the absurdity and honest about the selfishness, he is, more than most mountaineers, eloquent in describing the satisfactions climbing can bring . . . It is powerful, dramatic writing . . . This is one of the best mountaineering books to have been published for a long while

One of the most successful climbers of his generation . . . outstanding . . . his best book

Stephen Venables is best known as the mountaineer who in 1988 became the first Briton to climb Everest without oxygen - one of many pioneering expeditions around the world. He began climbing while at Oxford in the early 1970s, and has written eight books about his mountain travels, winning the Boardman Tasker Prize, the King Albert Medal and the Grand Award at Banff International Mountain Literature Festival. He has also appeared in several television documentaries and worked on two IMAX movies - appearing in Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure and writing Alps - Giants of Nature. His most recent book, Ollie, was a Sunday Times bestseller. He is President of the Alpine Club in the year of its 150th anniversary. He lives in Bath with his wife and son.

Together with Chris Bonington and other distinguished British climbers, Stephen Venables was high on the unclimbed and sacred mountain of Panch Chuli when, at 1am on a dark Himalayan night, his abseil failed and he fell catastrophically, somersaulting from rock to rock and landing, seriously-wounded, at the end of a rope suspended above a 50-degree icefield. This is the story of his arduous and almost miraculous survival, and of the brilliant, committed teamwork which brought him to safety.

Stephen Venables

A Path to Everest

High and wild places have dominated Stephen Venables' life and now he has written a full autobiography which explores how and - more importantly - why he became a mountaineer, and reveals a series of never-recorded adventures on four continents. At its climax he revisits his dramatic success without oxygen on the Kangshung Face of Everest, described by Reinhold Messner as the most adventurous in Everest's history and by Lord Hunt as 'one of the most remarkable ordeals from which men or women have returned alive'. As Venables writes: 'Although we didn't go seeking deliberately an epic near-death experience, it did turn out that way - the ultimate endurance test for which all the previous adventures seemed, retrospectively, to be a preparation.'

Stephen Venables

Higher Than The Eagle Soars

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