Paul James Nunn (1943-1995)
Stout yeoman of post-war British climbing
‘Tall Paul’ was one of the stars of the Alpha Club – a kind of ’60s successor to the famous Rock and Ice, and during the late ’50s and early ’60s he was one of the leading rock climbers in the Peak, Wales and the Lakes.
An adoptee, the Macclesfield-raised but Irish-born Nunn burst onto the scene aged 16 when he began repeating the hardest gritstone climbs of the day. Together with his friends in the Alpha Club, he made an immediate impact, making some audacious solos on the Roaches in the late 1950s and early 1960s while attending Sheffield University. Eventually, he would put up over 40 new gritstone and 60 new limestone routes in the Peak.