English, Solitaire, Cowboy, Cuckoo...

Book excerpt: This bizarre-but-true autobiography chronicles Mike Leaver's madcap travels and death-defying misadventures as a solo mountaineer. In pioneering Eddie-The-Eagle style, Mike overcomes childhood illness, climbing Birmingham's post-war bombsites, to build lifelong resilience to endure alone in often wild and perilous environments. Ride with Mike on his adapted motorbike as he tackles serious winter climbing in Snowdonia (featuring a miraculous, split-second rescue), the Lake District (getting hopelessly lost), and the Ben Nevis massif (with a Hogmanay Party on summit). Then brave a classic 1970s Brit-abroad road trip to the French Alps – scaling icy Mont Blanc rock unroped, wearing a yellow crash helmet, and using nine-inch nails inside glaciers! Join Mike in his self-converted truck as he travels to North Africa, walks across the Sahara Desert to swim in the Atlantic, and climbs the tallest mountain in Morocco's High Atlas in unexpected snow! Share his epic driving escapade to the High Arctic's winter wilderness: barely surviving Scandinavia's three highest peaks in Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and crawling frozen back to his lorry! Now a retired handyman and author, Mike enjoys his lorry-home lifestyle in a pretty Snowdonia town, while promoting more leisurely mountaineering, potholing, and sailing for older folk!