[1] In 1960, at the age of 19, both of Croucher's legs were severed below the knee by a train after he collapsed in a drunken stupor and fell down an embankment onto a railway line in Wiltshire.
He became the first person fitted with artificial limbs to walk the 900 miles from John O'Groats to Lands End in 1969 which he claimed also hardened his stumps for subsequent mountain climbing.
Six months after the 900-mile walk to Lands End Croucher climbed the Jungfrau and the Mönch mountains in Switzerland and in 1972 he scaled the treacherous west flank of the Eiger.
[3]Croucher concluded his article by noting that there were advantages beyond just being impervious to frozen feet: "I need take no special precautions against hookworms, leeches and short snakes."
[4] In "Walkabout", the fourth episode of the American TV series Lost, John Locke incorrectly identifies Croucher as having climbed Mt Everest, a feat later accomplished by New Zealand mountaineer and double amputee Mark Inglis.