Clough was born on 13 March 1937 in the
Yorkshire town of
Baildon, near
Bradford, and learned to climb on the gritstone edges near his home. He did his
National Service in the
RAF, and he joined the
RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Service. He supported himself after leaving National Service in various jobs, including running a small climbing school from the cottage he and his wife
Nikki Clough owned at
Glen Coe. Now one of the best British climbers of his generation, he made many difficult ascents in the
Alps, including the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Frêney on
Mont Blanc with
Don Whillans,
Chris Bonington and
Jan Długosz in 1961 and the first British ascent of the North Face of the
Eiger, with Bonington in 1962. He climbed widely in Britain too, publishing a guide to the
Scottish Highlands in 1969, and in 1968 he and the Scottish mountaineer
Tom Patey were the first to climb
Am Buachaille, a
sea stack at
Sandwood Bay off the coast of
Sutherland. Two years later, both Clough and Patey died in separate climbing accidents within five days of one another. When Clough died on 30 May 1970, he would have been unaware Patey had been killed abseiling down another Scottish sea stack on 25 May. His wife
Nikki Clough, who later died of cancer, was also a mountaineer and climbed the
north face of the
Matterhorn with her husband. == Expedition to Annapurna ==