00:00I don't want to die. I want to live to my old age. I love life. I love living. In
00:07order for me to have that control, I need to accept that possibility of death.
00:17My name is George King, also known as the Shard Climber, and this is my story. When
00:24I was younger, I was really curious about fear, and I'd test myself by climbing up trees
00:32and then jumping out of the trees. I didn't necessarily want to climb the trees or jump
00:37out, but that feeling of apprehension, I then sort of took that on to climbing up onto the
00:44school roof and then climbing onto cranes and climbing onto buildings. I was never satisfied
00:48by it, and I guess the sort of driving force was this curiosity towards fear. A really
00:58poignant memory was when I first climbed a climbing wall without rope. I was around 10 years old,
01:069 to 10 years old. I was totally alone and it was around sort of 7 to 8 meters high. I remember
01:12getting halfway and freezing. I had this sort of this panic where I started to almost hyperventilate.
01:20My vision started to get blurry, but after sort of composing myself and focusing on my breathing,
01:27I then managed to finish climbing up that wall. And when I got to the top of the wall, I was hit
01:32with a feeling which I'd never felt before. This overwhelming sense of euphoria, bliss, almost
01:42like a supernatural feeling. When I was younger, I was obsessed with this idea of wanting to do
01:48something big and I'd have this big list of dreams. I'd have almost 200 different dreams and most of them
01:55were totally unrealistic. And then at the age of 13, I was on the school art trip going from Oxford to
02:02London, sitting in the back of the bus, looking out the window when I saw the Shard for the first time.
02:08It was alone from all the other buildings in London. It was futuristic in look, almost as if it had been
02:16taken from the future and put into the present. And impulsively, I put it down on my list of dreams.
02:22Dream 202, climb the Shard. And by the time I was 18 and I'd left school,
02:29I went on that mission to achieve that big thing. And I spent sort of six to eight months preparing
02:38intensely and training intensely. It was my entire existence was the Shard. I sort of sacrificed social
02:45life. I sacrificed family life. I sacrificed everything, anything which didn't have to do with
02:50the Shard, I sacrificed for around six to eight months. And I do all different kinds of things.
02:56If a pair, I'd sort of, you know, I'd dress up in sports gear and I'd run to the Shard and I'd sort
03:02of, I'd noticed that the pillars up at the top were the same dimensions of the ones at the bottom.
03:08But I couldn't just get a measuring tape and start sort of measuring, otherwise it'd be suspicious.
03:13So I'd run to the Shard in sports gear, I'd sort of stretch on a pillar. And as I'm stretching on the
03:18pillar, I'd see that the width would go from my wrist to my elbow. Then I run back home, get a measuring tape,
03:23measure from my wrist and my elbow, then I'll get my measurement. And then I do this probably around
03:28200 times each and every time wearing a different disguise to avoid pattern recognition, each time
03:34just getting one piece of information. Until around eight months in, intuitively, I felt as though I was
03:41ready. The night before, the calm before the storm, simply wasn't calm. I was absolutely terrified.
03:50I feared everything. I feared losing my life. I feared losing my freedom. I feared that all the
03:59preparation I'd done over the course of the last eight months would render completely useless.
04:04But as time grew closer, the colder I became, and by the time it was around 4.30 in the morning,
04:12as I was sort of warming up and stretching and getting the blood flow throughout my body,
04:18I felt totally invincible. I trusted in my preparation. I trusted in my training.
04:25And with that, I exited the hotel. I crossed over 2D Street. I climbed up onto London Bridge Station
04:32roof. I took a suction cup onto another level, sprinted across a roof platform, then climbed onto
04:40the Shard. I didn't wear a camera on my head. I didn't have drones filming in the sky. It wasn't
04:46about a film. It wasn't about fame. It was simply about satisfying that childhood need to do something
04:54big. And as I got higher and higher, the sirens would grow around London. But I was not paying
05:02any attention to it. I was totally locked into the moment. And by the time I got halfway, I remember
05:08looking into the window of the Shard and I saw a cleaner. And the cleaner smiled at me. I smiled back.
05:15I waved at the cleaner. The cleaner waved back at me. This sort of bizarre synergy, a moment which obviously
05:21neither of us would get again. And I took that energy. I climbed with it. And at this point,
05:27there was sort of police sort of congregating inside the sort of top terrace bit. And after sort of
05:35embracing the moment of being at the top and looking around and sort of feeling the sense of
05:41accomplishment, I eventually got inside the building from there. And I was sort of expecting quite a,
05:48you know, confrontational response from the authorities, you know, sort of putting hands
05:54behind your back, handcuffs on, getting taken away. But I didn't get any of that. It was actually really
06:00pleasant. They sort of shook my hand. They said, well done. And within 30 minutes, they let me go.
06:06And then after the dust had settled, both emotionally and mentally, you know, I entered into this quite
06:14profound state of depression. I no longer had that big dream to chase. And that was quite a
06:20poignant message, you know, that it's not, it's never just the arrival. It's never just the achievement
06:24because that feeling that only lasts at most two weeks, but the journey, the process towards these
06:31dreams that lasts a lot longer. So I sort of take that with me on any adventure I embark on today.
06:38I always knew that prison was a potential outcome of doing this. But after the interaction I had with
06:44the police at the top, I didn't really think that it would ever come to that. For three months, I was
06:52sort of enjoying summer, going to sort of festivals and just enjoying being free. But that didn't happen
07:00for too long because I had a court case, a sort of civil court case on the 28th of October. And
07:11I always knew that prison was a potential outcome of doing this. But after the interaction I had with
07:18the police at the top, I didn't really think that it would ever come to that after that interaction. So
07:27I remember coming into the courtroom with this quite sort of cocky, young, naive bravado that I
07:34just walk in and walk straight back out. But yeah, that wasn't the case at all. I walked in and I
07:41immediately felt the weight of the law. I was sentenced to six months imprisonment of which I sort of,
07:47I just took on the chin. I was actually quite excited to have this new adventure. You know,
07:53as I said, I had this emptiness after the shard, like I needed some kind of new challenge. And
07:58they'd given me this opportunity to go to prison. I was actually quite thankful, which is strange for
08:03most people to think. But for me, that was a new adventure. And I was sent to HMP Pentonville,
08:11which is a prison in London and is regarded to be one of the most violent prisons in the country.
08:17And it certainly lived up to its name. I saw stabbings on a near daily basis, serious bouts of
08:23self harm, one including a suicide. And it was a really sort of horrific place. He was sentenced to
08:31six months in jail. He says prison was tough, but he won't let adversity extinguish his spirits.
08:39I go through this process the night before I climb a difficult building or a difficult base jump,
08:47where I accept the possibility of death. I'm not preparing myself to die. The probabilities are that
08:56I will survive because I've done the preparation, I've done the training, but there's always the
09:01unforeseen. There's always that possibility that I could die. So the night before I accept that
09:06possibility, it cleans my mind, it gives me this sense of liberation, this freedom, you know,
09:15the meaning for what I'm doing and the feelings it gives me. And it's worth taking that risk.
09:23My mind is a bit different to other people, like I need to do these things. Otherwise, I'd go down
09:31toxic paths, if it'd be alcohol, drugs or whatever. It's, you know, these pursuits, they keep me
09:39straight. So I have to do, I have to do them. I don't want to die. I want to live to my old age.
09:45I love life. I love living and I love people and I don't, I want to be around for them. But in order for
09:52me to have that control, I need to accept that possibility of death. Yes, of course, police have
10:02better things to do than arrest me at the top of the building. I get it. I totally understand.
10:08But for me, and this may be selfish, but for me, that's not enough of a reason not to do it.
10:15I will do strength and conditioning and sort of cardio work, but generally speaking, it's just about
10:21doing it. My training is being on the adventures. You can climb on a climbing wall all you like with
10:28ropes and colored grades and all this sort of stuff, but that's not really going to expose the mind to
10:35the fear of being in an urban environment, climbing without a rope with the pressure of the police and
10:41the pressure of the public and getting caught. And really like my best training is just doing it.
10:49I've put my family through hell with what I do, but they do trust me. They know I'm not reckless
10:56with it. They know I take precautions. They know I train. They know I'm critical in my analysis of
11:02everything. What do you feel about what your son does? Well, it's terrifying, but I trust George.
11:07I know he plans so well for these climbs. I don't know when he's going to climb. I only hear afterwards.
11:13I mean, the base jumping more than the climbing scares me the most. Climbing and base jumping go
11:19hand in hand because once you climb up something, you need to get down. And for me, that's what sort
11:28of ignited the curiosity to learn how to base jump because whenever I'd reached the top of these
11:35buildings, I'd be at the top and I think to myself, what if I just jump off? Like, could I just fly off
11:42this building? I'd always have this desire to jump when I'd reach the top. And obviously without a
11:48parachute, that's suicide. But with a parachute, that's flying. It goes against every human instinct
11:54to stand on the top of something high and throw yourself off it. And everything in your heart and
12:01mind is telling you not to do this, that this is a bad idea. But you know, you made this commitment
12:08and you're going to do it. And when you do do it, it's just surreal. For me, it's climbing and base
12:15jumping. It is art. It's rebellion. It's freedom. It's therapy. It nourishes the soul. I can't think of a
12:23situation which would stop me from climbing other than death and an injury which is completely
12:31debilitating. Not a family member, not a girlfriend, not anyone really will stop me from doing what I'm
12:37doing. I think even if I had children, I don't think that would be enough to stop me. I would love
12:45to climb some mountains. I have interest in that for sure. But there's a lot of the mountains have been
12:51climbed. Not all, but most have. Whereas with the buildings, not many people have climbed buildings.
12:58So that makes them more special to me. I mean, there's just buildings everywhere. So like, I'm not
13:04going to get bored. My story, my journey is, my message is not about encouraging people to recreate
13:13what I do. If you just turn up and attempt to do what I do without proper preparation or proper training,
13:21you'll likely die for sure. My message is more about understanding what your strengths are,
13:29understanding what your passions are. And once you find out what that passion is, block out the entire
13:34universe and become totally tunnel visioned into that passion. Attach dreams to those passions and do
13:43everything possible to achieve those dreams.
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