Don Whillans (18 May 1933 – 4 August 1985) was an English rock climber and mountaineer. Born and raised in a two-up two-down house in Salford, Lancashire, he climbed with both Joe Brown and Chris Bonington on many new routes, and was considered the technical equal of both. He was an apprentice plumber when he first started his climbing career with Joe Brown in 1951. Don met Joe Brown while climbing one day at the Roaches, Staffordshire. When Joe's climbing partner failed to follow Joe up a new route, Don shouted up to ask if he could try—and subsequently led the second pitch of Joe's new route, which became known as Matinee.

Whillans had from an early age walked all around the local Pennine moors; climbing therefore was the next step for an adventurous young boy. From rock climbing he expanded into mountaineering with trips to the Alps. Ascents in the alps included the "Bonatti Pillar" of the Dru and the first ascent along with Chris Bonington, Jan Długosz and Ian Clough of the Central Pillar of Freney. In 1962 with Chris Bonington he made the first ascent of the Central Tower of Paine, Patagonia. With Dougal Haston, he made the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna in Bonington's 1970 expedition.

Ron Fawcett (born 1955) is an English rock climber. He is noted for being amongst the outstanding rock climbers of the 1970s and 1980s, and for being one of the first professional rock climbers.

He won the 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature with Ed Douglas, for their book Ron Fawcett, Rock Athlete.

Douglas Keith Scott CBE, known as Doug Scott (born 29 May 1941), is an English mountaineer noted for the first ascent of the south-west face of Mount Everest on 24 September 1975. Scott and Dougal Haston were the first Britons to climb Everest during this expedition. In receiving one of mountaineering's highest honours, the Lifetime Achievement Piolet d'Or, his personal style and climbs were described as "visionary".

Scott was born in Nottingham, England and started climbing at the age of 12, his interest sparked by a school trip to the White Hall outdoor activities centre near Buxton.

Scott's mountaineering career includes over 30 expeditions to inner Asia and he is regarded as one of the world's leading high altitude and big wall climbers. He is best known for his first ascent of the south-west face of Everest with Dougal Haston in an expedition led by Chris Bonington. All of his other climbs have been in the lightweight alpine style.

Highlights of Scott's climbing career include

Scott has climbed the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each of all seven continents. He is a past President of the Alpine Club and was made a CBE in 1994. In 1999 he was awarded the Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He was presented with the Golden Eagle Award by the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild in 2005 and received the Lifetime Contribution Award at the 2011 Piolet d'Or awards in Chamonix. He was awarded an honorary MA by the University of Nottingham in 1991.

Terence Oldfield (born 12 August 1949) is an English composer, and brother to music composers and performers Sally and Mike Oldfield.

Born in Palmers Green, North London, Oldfield and his siblings were raised in the Roman Catholic faith of their mother, Maureen. Oldfield spent his childhood partly in Dublin and partly in Reading, Berkshire. He later attended a Benedictine monastery school and also spent a few futile terms at the Oratory School in Woodcote, Oxfordshire. His earliest musical experiences were in the myriad of folk clubs that sprung-up in the UK during the late 1960s and early 1970s, listening to the songs of Leonard Cohen, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Bob Dylan.

Oldfield left school at 16 to travel the world and worked as a roadie for various bands including The Byrds. During an extended stay on the Greek island of Hydra, he took up his first musical instrument, the flute. "I think it was learning to play in this way, with no formal guidance, that allowed me to develop the ability to compose music. I spent many happy days improvising tunes and discovering scales and arpeggios for myself, and soon started to teach myself to write these things down". Terry's only formal music training was in Agra, India where he spent some time learning to play the tabla.

Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL (born 6 August 1934, Hampstead, London) is a British mountaineer.

His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna.

Educated at University College School in Hampstead, he joined the Royal Fusiliers before attending Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and on graduation was commissioned in the Royal Tank Regiment in 1956. After three years in North Germany, he spent two years at the Army Outward Bound School as a mountaineering instructor.

Bonington was part of the party that made the first British ascent of the South West Pillar (aka Bonatti Pillar) of the Aiguille du Dru in 1958, and the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Freney on the south side of Mont Blanc in 1961 with Don Whillans, Ian Clough and Jan Dlugosz (Poland). In 1960 he was part of the successful joint British-Indian-Nepalese forces expedition to Annapurna II.

On leaving the British Army in 1961, he joined Van den Berghs, a division of Unilever. But he left after nine months, and became a professional mountaineer and explorer. In 1966 he was given his first assignment by the Daily Telegraph magazine to cover other expeditions, including - climbing Sangay in Ecuador; hunting Caribou with Eskimos on Baffin Island. In 1968 he accompanied Captain John Blashford-Snell and his British Army team in the attempt to make the first ever descent of the Blue Nile.