Inverness based writer and actor, John Burns (56), has won first prize in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland’s (MC of S) annual writing competition which received entries from across Scotland.  John’s feature, Cheating the Reaper, was about a brush with death he experienced when he was struck by an avalanche in the Canadian Rockies.

Reporting on the competition for the MC of S, Jayne Glass said:

In first place, and this year’s Mountain Article prose category winner, was John Burns’ Cheating the Reaper. “A dramatic account of being avalanched whilst ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies”, John’s piece was described as a “solid story”, which was “well told, with vivid and emotive natural imagery”. With a “skilful handling of time (from flashbacks to the present)”, it was a “joy to read”.

John said, “I was delighted to win the completion, I’ve been writing for some time and had a number of features published but this is the first time I’ve won a competition.  Just being placed would have been a real reward for the work I’ve put in to writing but to come first was something I never expected.”

“The avalanche was a really dramatic event in my life and an accident my climbing partner and I were lucky to survive.  In mountaineering all the best stories come from near disasters, that’s where the real drama and excitement is in climbing.”

John, who recently took his one man play, A Passion for Evil, about mountaineer and occultist Aleister Crowley to the Lowry in Salford after its successful run in the Edinburgh Fringe, is now writing a book about his mountaineering experiences.

Originally from Merseyside John explains “I moved to the Highlands almost thirty years ago to indulge my passion for its wilderness and to explore its high places.  In all those years I picked up a fair few stories about climbing and climbers that I think people will find entertaining and interesting.  As well as coming close to death in Canada I’ve tales about descending from Ben Nevis in the dark, yarns from whiskey fuelled nights in Highland bothies and stories about some of the characters I’ve met.”

John was a member of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team for seven years and was also president of the Inverness Mountaineering Club, he is still an active mountaineer.

“Climbs make great stories,” said John, “at the outset you never really know what you are going to encounter but you know you’ll face challenges and perhaps your life will be at stake.  It’s that kind of drama that takes people back to the hills again and again and draws them to Scotland’s mountains.”

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