"Although it is impossible to write a history of night climbing — because there is no such history — yet the a game of roof-climbing remains the same, changing scarcely, if at all, from generation to generation. History records change, big events sandwiched between long periods of monotony, while roof-climbing — if it could stand out of the darkness which enshrouds it — is simply a string of disconnected incidents. There is no continuity. Or rather, there is none of the continuity of purposes and cross-purposes, developments and declines, ambitions and indifferences which make history. When one man goes, there is no one to take up the thread where he left off. The blanket of the dark hides each group of climbers from its neighbours, muffles up a thousand deeds of valour, and almost entirely prevents the existence of dangerous rivalry."

- Noel Howard Symington, "The Night Climbers of Cambridge"