John Earnshaw was a climber and member of the Phoenix Club in England in 1963, a time when climbers were looking for new ways to protect their climbs as replacements for the chockstones and engineers nuts they were using. John created a ‘wedge’ made out of steel and enlisted his pal, Terence Murphy, to help with the technical machine work. A ‘ Murphy’ is a potato in Ireland where Terence originated. In England a potato is a ‘spud’ so Earnshaw’s wedge became a Spud in respect of Terence’s input. We can’t be 100% sure that the one we have here is a real Earnshaw Spud as we don’t think John stamped his creation with a logo but it certainly looks like one and dating from the 1960’s it fits datewise. The Spud is complimented by what looks like a homemade hexagonal nut (again no logo) fashioned from aluminium and also two brass bearings or bushes which the owner tells us he got from his dad’s toolbox. The owner was Jon Jones who began climbing in North Wales in the 1960’s. He kindly passed on this fabulous little array of rock climbing history to us in 2022.