To Jenny, and my daughter, Jane

Welcome to the website of Alan Hubbard, author of "I'm Alan Hubbard, who are you?" 

Cover image of book "I'm Alan Hubbard, who are you?" by Alan Hubbard, author and climber

Available at Bookends at Carlisle and Keswick or direct from the author using the Buy It Now button below. ISBN no.  978-1-80049-140-3

Buy It Now

Delivery Options

If you would like to buy multiple copies of the book, please click the Add to Cart button and then select how many copies you require under Quantity from the cart screen before completing Checkout.   For Book Trade enquiries please Contact Me.

Dedication

I would also like to dedicate this book to ordinary people I may never know.

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor."

This verse from Thomas Gray’s beautiful "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" says much about the tone of this book. Whoever we are, however humble our lives may have been, we are part of the tapestry of the world we have lived in. Believe in your relevance.

Awards

"I'm Alan Hubbard, who are you?"  was longlisted for the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, an annual award for literary works concerned with the mountain environment. The prize of £3,000 commemorates the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker and is given to the author or co-authors of an original work, which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature.  2021 Kendal Mountain Festival. 

I'm Alan Hubbard

Growing up during the second world war in Salford, being at the same school as actor Albert Finney and artist Harold Riley, a climbing contemporary of Joe Brown, Don Whillans and Chris Bonington - none of whom knew him, Alan Hubbard tells his own story of a nobody. It spans eight decades and counting of turbulent change. Status, wealth, letters after names, reputations don't automatically impress him - respect must be earned. Politicians and public school alumni are treated with suspicion but not written off. Authority has its place but not necessarily over him. A free spirit has his say. 

This is more than the memoirs of an octogenarian. An insight into the life of working class Britain over eight decades unfolds in a series of anecdotes from someone whose cavalier approach frequently led to edgy situations. How they were handled reveals as much about society as it does of him. The scene oscillates between the grind of physical work and thrilling ascents of towering cliffs above heaving seas on remote islands. Along the way cathedrals, country church yards and lonely moorlands evoke reflections on life.  Politics are a constant thread - not in an academic way, but in a this-is-what-it-means-to-you way. You are urged to think rather than subliminally absorb. The aim is to amuse and inform, often in a confrontational style.