In his element: some of the party in the landscape that Harry Griffin loved
Book launches? You no doubt know about them: hot, crowded room, cheap plonk, roar of voices, author crouched in the corner hoping someone'll want her/him to sign a tome, writes Martin Wainwright. Well, imagine that, plus 200 sausage rolls, 50 balloons, 65 bubble-blowers shaped like small champagne bottles, and 12 litres of wine - all on the summit of Helvellyn, 3,116 feet (just under 950 metres) above sea level and the third highest mountain in England.
Why did we do it? Not, in the words of Everest's most famous victim George Mallory, because it was there. It was because Harry Griffin, whose best Guardian Country Diaries make up the book we launched, was a man who lived a lifetime of mountains. He patrolled the high places, in his own words, while the other diarists took the valleys and plains.
The event itself was great - 100 people including a passing party of air cadets who'd never been to a book launch and eagerly contributed a jumbo pack of jelly babies. But getting there was gruelling. I last did Striding Edge in my mid-20s and on the day of the launch its stony dragon's back kept appearing and vanishing in spooky mist. Luckily we had a score or more of Harry's toughest apprentices with us: the high command of Coniston Mountain Rescue and half-a-dozen members of the country's most venerable climbing club, the Fell and Rock.
It was one of these, Ian Whitmey, who stopped us all with the shout: "Brocken spectre!" And for an unforgettable moment this extraordinary phenomenon of mountain country appeared. Our shadows, hugely magnified and surrounded by "glories" - complete rainbows which can sometimes form a double circle - waved back from the cauldron of mist above Red Tarn.
Have you got your own Helvellyn story? Or been to a weird book launch of your own? And would you like to be told if we have a Harry's Launch reunion next summer, say on Scafell? Please post.
* A Lifetime of Mountains, the best of A Harry Griffin's Country Diary, is published by Guardian Books. To order for £12.99 plus p&p call 0870-836 0749 or visit theguardian.com/bookshop.
