Early mountaineers used candle lanterns and oil filled lamps to find their way around back in the good old days. Early battery powered torches were not very handy for climbing as you needed a spare hand to carry them. There is a lovely story of a 1960’s climber on Ben Nevis finishing a climb in the dark with a torch held in his teeth. Pile(Peelay) of France were one of the first companies to produce a proper headlamp for climbing, we suspect around 1970 and they also seem to have been one of the first to create/invent a system to plug the headlamp into a handheld torch which could be clamped onto a belt or put in a pocket or rucksack. As usual with a good idea, there were lots of copies, one of which we have here in the collection. It’s a fairly lightweight / cheap version made in Hong Kong and though it sports a UK patent we can’t find it on the database. The olive colouring suggests it could have been made for the military.