On being Steve Chilton’s ‘critical friend’ on All or Nothing at All: The life of Billy Bland
This month sees the publication of Steve Chilton’s biography of the legendary fell runner, Billy Bland. Previously Steve, who is a friend and my former coach at Barnet & District AC, has written three fell running books, and each time his focus has narrowed. His first, It’s a Hill, Get Over It, is a complete history of fell running. It was followed by The Round, which chronicles one the sport’s monuments: the Bob Graham Round. His third book, Running Hard, describes the early-eighties duel between fell running heavyweights John Wild and Kenny Stuart. And now, Steve has set his sights on one individual, which is not to say that the scope of All or Nothing at All is any way smaller than his previous books. So dominant was Billy Bland in the 70s and 80s, and so much a man of his environment, that to tell the story of his life is to tell the story of a sport at a time and place that continues to have an enormous influence on fell and mountain running in the present day. Little surprise then that Killian Jornet himself has written the book’s foreword — a fitting tribute from the only runner to have completed the Bob Graham Round faster than Bland, whose record time of 13 hours and 53 minutes stood for 36 years until Jornet beat it in 2018.
More of a surprise was that Steve asked me to be his ‘critical friend’ after he had finished the first draft of the manuscript. While I have a good deal of experience putting coursebooks together, I’d never before been involved in the editing process of a biography. So what could I bring to the role of critical friend?
Speaking to Steve, it was clear that he wanted a sounding board: someone to read the manuscript and see what worked; what might need more clarification, and whether there were any areas that could be tidied up or even cut. Having spent months buried in research and drafts and edits, it made sense that a ‘friendly’ pair of eyes with a certain degree of critical acumen could be beneficial to him. The longer you spend in researching and writing, the harder it can become to see the wood for the trees; to read a text the way a paying customer would.
Richard Holmes, the biographer of key figures from the Romantic era, describes his writing process as ‘a kind of pursuit, a tracking of the physical trail of someone’s path through the past, a following of footsteps.’ In reading the first draft of All or Nothing at All, I decided to let myself be guided by Steve as he followed the footsteps of Billy Bland’s life, but not to follow blindly. Much as a fell runner chooses their own routes between checkpoints, I would keep an open mind to any alternative trails that Billy Bland’s footsteps might point towards.
I know that Steve is a diligent researcher, and was aware that for this book he had amassed a huge amount of first person testimony, especially from Billy Bland and his wife Ann. I also recognised that telling the story of a fell running career as long and storied as Billy Bland’s would necessarily involve a great many race details: Where was it? When was it? Who ran it? Who didn’t? Why not? Who won it? What did that mean in terms of the rest of the season? etc. It seemed to me that one of the challenges Steve would face was in knowing what to include and what to leave out, as well as when to use a direct quote and when to report the information in his own words. Too few facts and quotes cause a text to lack heft or to seem unsubstantiated. But lists of facts and figures and excessive use of direct quotes can slow a narrative down and diminish the authority of the author’s voice, which is after all the guide that we readers rely upon to lead us along the trail. So as critical friend, I read the first draft of All or Nothing at All with Hemingway’s iceberg principle in the back of my mind, i.e. that although the research needs to be there, much of it can be below the surface.
I also worked on the assumption that there are three distinct types of reader for a book like All or Nothing at All, which for the sake of simplicity I’ll call the insiders, the outsiders and the inbetweeners. The insiders are already knowledgeable about the subject. If they saw Billy Bland in the street (or more likely, out in the fells) they would recognise him immediately. These are people who know the difference between the Blisco Dash and the Wasdale Fell Race. They are keen to get into specifics, and want detailed information on races, times, winners and losers. For these readers, the more specific the data and the more niche the info, the better.
At the other end of the scale are the outsiders. These are people who have come to the book for reasons other than a pre-existing interest in fell running. They may never have heard of Billy Bland, but perhaps have an interest in the Lake District. Or perhaps, they are getting into running, and have picked this book from the shelf out of vague interest in an athlete that’s new to them. They don’t know what the Blisco Dash is, or who Joss Naylor is, or why fell running is not the same cross country. They need to be guided carefully and, having little contextual knowledge of their own, they may not be tolerant of reams of facts and figures.
The inbetweeners (who include myself) are people with plenty of interest in the subject, but perhaps their knowledge lacks depth. They will be familiar with many of the names (be they runners, races or places), and have some grasp of the context. They are probably runners themselves, and may even have visited the Lake District, but perhaps not. At any rate, while they may appreciate the details, they still need help with the context surrounding certain events.
In reading the manuscript for All or Nothing at All as critical friend, I tried to keep each of these types of people in mind, always asking myself if there were any points one of the groups might feel left behind. It occurred to me that while the details of Billy Bland’s running career must of course provide the substance of the narrative, adequate signposting was important as a means of placing the wider context of specific events at the forefront and keeping the outsiders and inbetweeners on board. In the end, I was able to make suggestions regarding the structure and style that at the very least gave Steve something to think about when preparing his next draft.
Having glimpsed a later draft prior to publication, I’m confident that the trail Steve has laid out for us readers is both varied and accessible. Keeping up with Billy Bland is something only a very few have succeeded in doing, but in All or Nothing at All we have a book that lets us follow in his footsteps and understand for ourselves the immensity of his achievements.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
‘All or nothing at all’ will be published on Thursday 20th August and can be obtained from all good bookshops and online at Amazon.
Live book launch, Thu 20 Aug 6–30pm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVbuEUURETE&feature=youtu.be
About the book
All or nothing at all: the life of Billy Bland. Sandstone Press. Format: Hardback. ISBN: 9781913207229. Publication Date: 20/08/2020 RRP: £19.99
All or Nothing At All is the life story of Billy Bland, fellrunner extraordinaire and holder of many records including that of the Bob Graham Round until it was broken by the foreword author of this book, Kilian Jornet. It is also the story of Borrowdale in the English Lake District, describing its people, their character and their lifestyle, into which fellrunning is unmistakably woven.
About the author
Steve Chilton is a runner and coach with considerable experience of fell running. He is a long-time member of the Fell Runners Association (FRA). He formerly worked at Middlesex University as Lead Academic Developer. He has written three other books: It’s a Hill, Get Over It; The Round: In Bob Graham’s footsteps; and Running Hard: the story of a rivalry. He has written articles for The Fellrunner, Compass Sport, Like the Wind and Cumbria magazines.
He blogs at: https://itsahill.wordpress.com/
