01/12/2025
Meeting the Mountains – Mike Penny, MAF Founder:
My link with hills began in childhood on Helsby Hill, close to where I was born 1954 and spent the first decade of my life, where I watched climbers with h**p ropes tackling the “slash shoots.” They could have been Joe Brown or Pete Crew!
In 1964 my family moved to the flatlands of Kent, but an inspiring geography teacher, Mr Woolard, kept my interest alive with diagrams of glaciers and valleys. Sport soon took over, and for the next 20 years hockey and cricket dominated.
I studied geography at university but still hadn’t been to a real mountain. After a brief attempt at Town Planning, I moved to Birmingham and answered an advert for a geography teacher in Walsall. Days later I was in the job, and soon Mr Snowden, phonetically aptly named, sent me with a Year 10 group to Bryntisilio outdoor centre. Seeing the Nant Ffrancon for the first time from above Ogwen was unforgettable. When I asked how to work in a place like that, the answer was simple: “Be a teacher and get your Mountain Leader.”
I completed my training at Ogwen Cottage in 1979, a life-changing experience, and eighteen months later I secured my dream post at the ILEA field centre in Abergavenny. For seven years I introduced young people to the Brecon Beacons and joined London groups heading to the Alps, Pyrenees and Dolomites. During that time I set myself a clear ambition: earn the Mountain Instructor Certificate and one day run an outdoor centre. So from 1982 to 1992 it became my ambition. I had truly met the mountains!
My greatest joy has been showing thousands of young people the magic of mountains—the lifting of mist, walking out of an inversion, Brocken spectres, sunrise, storms and blizzards.
My greatest sadness has been watching state-funded mountain opportunities disappear since 2010: the closures of Ogwen Cottage, Birmingham’s Mountain Centre, Ty’n y Berth and many more. The cost of this to young people’s wellbeing is immense.
Then I met Paul Teuten, “let’s do something about it” he said and I agreed!
