Simon Nadin (1965-)
The World Champ Next Door
Former ‘Buxton Stickman’ Simon Nadin is every mother-in-law’s dream – a lovely bloke with all the necessary attributes for a British rock star. Modest and unassuming, he was an unlikely world champion at the first indoor climbing championships in 1989. Simon’s reputation grew from his cool-headed first ascents and early repeats on the gritstone outcrops surrounding his Buxton home. He started climbing the traditional way, cycling to his nearest crag (The Roaches), wearing plimsolls and armed with machine nuts made in metalwork class at school. He was soon repeating all the gritstone classics without knowing what they were and soloing VSs. Within three months of taking up climbing he was up to E3 and by the end of the year E6, usually climbing with his equally thin friend Richard Davis, which led to the famous moniker of ‘The Buxton Stick men’, coined by an admiring Phil Burke. In 1985 Nadin moved to Sheffield to study biology at the Poly but lasted just one term, distracted by climbing. At this time he was into on-sight soloing. An early example of his oeuvre was his solo of Our Father (E4 6b) at Stoney Middleton on-sight followed by the top pitch of Menopause (E5 6b), then a solo of Kellogg (E4 6b) to finish the day. Nadin has frequently soloed still harder routes, but rarely gives much away..