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Full of Myself
Full of Myself [Hardcover] Dawes, Johnny
298 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 24, 2026
Johnny (born in 1964) chose a tough life, but being on almost unclimbable rock faces at height was the least of the problems he had to accept as part of his choices. Facing oblivion on foot-holds an inch depth and finger-holds that almost didn’t exist was a happy place for Johnny. Everything else was a challenge. That much is clear from the book. This is an amazing insight into the crazy mind and world of the best UK rock climber of his generation (IMHO). Someone who had to sacrifice everything else the rest of us take for granted - and who has lived like a pauper his whole life - because climbing had chosen him and he couldn’t not do it.
It would be fair to say that Johnny does not think (or climb, or write) in a linear fashion. Thankfully the editor of the book must have realised this when presented with an early ‘final’ draft and insisted on a summary chapter that puts his achievements and other aspects of his life on a timeline diagram. Without that diagram I would have assumed that Johnny had been asleep on the back seat of a knackered French hatchback since the early 1990s.
Johnny’s family (from Birmingham, where I live) has always been hard-working and entrepreneurial, and as a result reasonably well-off financially (though sometimes on the edge as they are the type to risk it all on new ventures - which to me is the definition of an entrepreneur). They were also motor racing fanatics and very good at it. Unfortunately this whiff of money has resulted in almost every article I have ever read about Johnny (from climbing magazines to the Guardian feature on his first ascent of the hardest route in the UK) describing him as coming from a privileged and/or wealthy background. The Guardian’s catty comments about Johnny’s “wealthy and indulgent parents” (the feature is reproduced in full in the book) were particularly grating for me as I have rarely met a more entitled, trust-fund enabled bunch of people than Guardian journalists. Anyone who has actually met or dealt with Johnny in his 62 years (as at 2026) will tell you that he has always lived like a pauper (often in a car, including doing so in California where police aren’t too keen on illegals in cars.). He is the sort of person who will often be offered money or food - or arrested for vagrancy - if he sits on a bench or looks in a shop window. For this reason he has learned to keep moving when visiting public places.
I hope it isn’t too much of a spoiler to say that if you have ever wondered how someone becomes the best climber of his generation the answer is - climb up the outside of your house, school and every other available vertical surface at every opportunity. At least once day. And once you can do that, teach yourself to traverse around the whole building - first low down and then at height. For Johnny every building is a climb. And there were never any ropes involved. If he fell from 2/3/4 stories down to the patio or pavement then the consequences would be serious. Looking at the early pictures in the book you can see the brickwork he was climbing was bog-standard, often completely featureless, and usually impossible to down-climb. You either made it onto the roof or in through a window, or you were going to hospital (it seems Johnny’s pride and embarrassment didn’t allow for him to shout for help and ask for a ladder to be found…).
Luckily Johnny’s family came to the same realisation that millions of parents of musicians and artists have had to make for hundreds of years. Ie their child is going to pursue their art to the exclusion of all the things the rest of us regard as essential. Things like jobs, spouses, homes, and children. It’s a lonely path and it rarely pays off financially. As an uncle of mine once said to me about his own craft “Writing chooses you. You don’t choose writing.” (he didn’t claim this as original thought or quote, but he meant it). In the same way my uncle couldn’t not write songs, Johnny couldn’t not climb.
The author (Johnny) assumes his readers are familiar with climbing terminology right from the start. It certainly helps to know what ‘E’, HVS, ‘V’ etc mean when used to describe routes, so some experience of climbing (even indoors at beginner level) would aid understanding. But just a quick web-search of any terms you don’t understand will suffice. When all is said and done, it is the insight into the psyche of someone for whom nothing else matters (think Picasso, Bukowski, Fruscianti) that is the point of the book, not the technicalities of rock climbing.
It would be fair to say that Johnny does not think (or climb, or write) in a linear fashion. Thankfully the editor of the book must have realised this when presented with an early ‘final’ draft and insisted on a summary chapter that puts his achievements and other aspects of his life on a timeline diagram. Without that diagram I would have assumed that Johnny had been asleep on the back seat of a knackered French hatchback since the early 1990s.
Johnny’s family (from Birmingham, where I live) has always been hard-working and entrepreneurial, and as a result reasonably well-off financially (though sometimes on the edge as they are the type to risk it all on new ventures - which to me is the definition of an entrepreneur). They were also motor racing fanatics and very good at it. Unfortunately this whiff of money has resulted in almost every article I have ever read about Johnny (from climbing magazines to the Guardian feature on his first ascent of the hardest route in the UK) describing him as coming from a privileged and/or wealthy background. The Guardian’s catty comments about Johnny’s “wealthy and indulgent parents” (the feature is reproduced in full in the book) were particularly grating for me as I have rarely met a more entitled, trust-fund enabled bunch of people than Guardian journalists. Anyone who has actually met or dealt with Johnny in his 62 years (as at 2026) will tell you that he has always lived like a pauper (often in a car, including doing so in California where police aren’t too keen on illegals in cars.). He is the sort of person who will often be offered money or food - or arrested for vagrancy - if he sits on a bench or looks in a shop window. For this reason he has learned to keep moving when visiting public places.
I hope it isn’t too much of a spoiler to say that if you have ever wondered how someone becomes the best climber of his generation the answer is - climb up the outside of your house, school and every other available vertical surface at every opportunity. At least once day. And once you can do that, teach yourself to traverse around the whole building - first low down and then at height. For Johnny every building is a climb. And there were never any ropes involved. If he fell from 2/3/4 stories down to the patio or pavement then the consequences would be serious. Looking at the early pictures in the book you can see the brickwork he was climbing was bog-standard, often completely featureless, and usually impossible to down-climb. You either made it onto the roof or in through a window, or you were going to hospital (it seems Johnny’s pride and embarrassment didn’t allow for him to shout for help and ask for a ladder to be found…).
Luckily Johnny’s family came to the same realisation that millions of parents of musicians and artists have had to make for hundreds of years. Ie their child is going to pursue their art to the exclusion of all the things the rest of us regard as essential. Things like jobs, spouses, homes, and children. It’s a lonely path and it rarely pays off financially. As an uncle of mine once said to me about his own craft “Writing chooses you. You don’t choose writing.” (he didn’t claim this as original thought or quote, but he meant it). In the same way my uncle couldn’t not write songs, Johnny couldn’t not climb.
The author (Johnny) assumes his readers are familiar with climbing terminology right from the start. It certainly helps to know what ‘E’, HVS, ‘V’ etc mean when used to describe routes, so some experience of climbing (even indoors at beginner level) would aid understanding. But just a quick web-search of any terms you don’t understand will suffice. When all is said and done, it is the insight into the psyche of someone for whom nothing else matters (think Picasso, Bukowski, Fruscianti) that is the point of the book, not the technicalities of rock climbing.
June 7, 2012
This was a struggle. Oh Johnny, did no one tell you that sentences should contain a verb and preferably not stretch over a whole paragraph? And punctuation, eh? To be fair these faults lie with the editor as the writing is generally good.
May 11, 2012
This most unconventional of climbers has produced a very unconventional book. Dawes bares more of himself than most autobiographers and deals with all aspects of his life, warts and all. Defintely worth a read, although if you're a keen climber and understand the scene that he played a pivotal role in you'll get more from it.
August 14, 2013
Written like I would write an autobiography - all over the place. What a guy!
August 11, 2023
Enjoy this enough to fill in some extra detail on his life but I should have expected it to be pretty detailed due to the man himself.
It did drag a bit as each hold is described on various climbs in immense detail which did get a little hard to keep reading through at times unfortunately but still interesting to hear about his childhood and racing days.
It did drag a bit as each hold is described on various climbs in immense detail which did get a little hard to keep reading through at times unfortunately but still interesting to hear about his childhood and racing days.
August 20, 2025
Johnny's way of writing makes this book an absolute pleasure to read, I imagine even for people who may not understand the technical talk involved in trad climbing. His essay, written not long after his ascent of 'The Indian Face', is an especially thrilling inclusion - being one of the most riveting retellings of a feat I've ever read.
October 12, 2023
Inevitably some good stories in here, but reads like a child vomited a thesaurus all over it. With a good editor and/or ghostwriter that still lets Johnny’s unique personality shine through, this could be an incredible biography. Instead it’s a struggle.
January 2, 2015
A trip through the madcap mind of the original stone monkey. Between 1984 and 1987 he was at the cutting edge of trad climbing in the world.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews