Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine (45 page)

4          J E Pedder

5          E R J Walmsley

6          A R Armitage

7          A C Irvine

W F Smith, stroke

I Robertson, cox

University Boat Race

LXXIV Saturday 1 April 1922, at 4.40pm

Oxford (Surrey)

P C Mallam, Qu. Bow             11.6

A C Irvine, Mert                      12.8

S Earl, Magd.                          12. 6 ½

J E Pedder, Worc                     12.9

G O Nickalls, Magd                 12.8

D T Raikes, Mert                     13.6 ½

G Milling, Mert                       11.10

A V Campbell, Ch.Ch. str        11.5 ½

W H Porritt, Magd. Cox          8.10

            Average                       12.4

Cambridge (Middlesex)

T D A Collet, Pem. Bow           12.3

A J Hodgkin, 1 Trin                  12.6 ½

K N Craig, Pemb                      12.8 ½

A D Pearson, 1 Trin                 13.10 ½

H B Playford, Jesus                  13.10 ½

B G Ivory, Pemb                      13.8

Hon J W H Fremantle, 3 Trin  12.6 ½

P H G H-S Hartley, LMBC, str 11.6

L E Stephens, Trin H cox         9.4

            Average                       12.11

Cambridge won by 4 ½ lengths in 19 min. 27 sec

LXXV Saturday 24 March 1923, at 5.10pm

Oxford (Surrey)

P C Mallam, Qu. Bow             11.12

P R Wace, BNC                        12.6 ½

A C Irvine, Mert.                     12.10 ½

R K Kane, Ball.             13.9 ½

G J Mower-White, BNC           13.11 ½

J E Pedder, Worc                     13.3 ½

G O Nickalls, Magd                 12.12

W P Mellen, BNC. Str  10.12

G D Clapperton, Magd. Cox    7.11

            Average                       12.8 ½

Cambridge (Middlesex)

W F Smith, 1 Trin. Bow           11.7 ½

F W Law, LMBC.                      12.12

K N Craig, Pemb.                     13.0

S H Heap, Jesus                       13.7 ½

B G Ivory, Pemb                      13.10

T D A Collet, Pemb                  12.7

R E Morrison, 3 Trin               12.1

T R B Sanders, 3 Trin str         11.12

R A L Balfour, 3 Trin cox         8.8

            Average                       12.8 7/8

Oxford won by ¾ length in 20 min. 54 sec

EVEREST TEAM MEMBERS

1921

Lt. Col. Charles K. Howard-Bury
(Leader)

Harold Raeburn
(Climbing Leader, but indisposed)

George H. Leigh Mallory
(Acting Climbing Leader)

Guy H. Bullock

Dr. Alexander M. Kellas

Dr. A. M. Heron
(Geological Survey of India)

Maj. Henry T. Morshead

Maj. Edward O. Wheeler
(Survey of India)

Dr. Alexander F. R. Wollaston (Medical Officer/Naturalist)

Gyalzen Kazi

Chettan Wangdi
(Interpreters)

1922

General Charles G. Bruce
(Leader)

Lt. Col. Edward Lisle Strutt
(Deputy Leader)

Capt. C. Geoffrey Bruce

Colin G. Crawford

C. John Morris
(Transport Officers)

George Ingle Finch

Dr. Tom G. Longstaff
(Medical Officer / Naturalist)

George H. Leigh Mallory

Maj. Henry T. Morshead

Maj. Edward F. Norton

Capt. John B. L. Noel
(Photographer / Filmmaker)

Dr. T. Howard Somervell

Dr. Arthur W. Wakefield

Karma Paul
(Interpreter)

Gyaljen (Gyalzen kazi)
(Sirdar)

1924

General Charles G. Bruce
(Leader, but indisposed)

Lt. Col. Edward F. Norton
(Acting Leader, after Bruce taken ill)

George H. Leigh Mallory
(Climbing Leader)

Bentley Beetham

Capt. C. Geoffrey Bruce

John de Vars Hazard

Maj. R.W.G. Hingston
(Medical Officer)

Andrew C. ‘Sandy’ Irvine

Capt. John B. L. Noel
(Photographer / Filmmaker)

Noel E. Odell

E. O. Shebbeare
(Transport Officer)

Dr. T. Howard Somervell

Karma Paul
(Interpreter)

Gyaljen (Gyalzen Kazi)
(Sirdar)

A glorious, very remarkable, very disheartening end to a beautiful young man, who probably … Let’s leave him with the likelihood that he got there and did it.  Leave him in peace.

Harry Abraham, 5 May 2001

Since the publication of the first edition of this book in November 2000 the feedback from all quarters has been as remarkable as it has been unexpected.  It would seem that Sandy Irvine’s life touched more people than even I had anticipated.  People wrote to me saying that memories, dormant for fifty or sixty years, had come flooding back.  Some were reminded of specific events, such as the lantern slide lectures given by Noel Odell in the late 1920s, others had memories of various members of the Irvine family.  Then there were people who had strong recollections of things pertaining directly to Sandy himself.  

John Kemp, helping out at in the cellars of Hertfordshire County Library during the Second World War as a boy, told me of ‘packing what I remembered as junk into large wooden boxes brought down from London for safety from air raids.  It belonged to the Alpine Club Library.  I clearly remember an ice axe and have vague memories of notebooks, goggles and clothing.  What ever it was it must have been of some value to store it.  This incident remained hidden in my memory for over sixty years and reading your book revived the memory and the rather morbid feeling I had at the time.’  For a long while the ice axe was one of the only articles belonging to Sandy Irvine known to be in existence and I well remember seeing it for the first time.  It was difficult to believe that I was holding something that had been found so high on Everest nine years after his death.  It looked and felt so ordinary and that made the tragedy all the more poignant.

Other items of memorabilia began to emerge, particularly relating to Sandy’s rowing career.  Mark Chapman, a printer from Abingdon, offered the Irvine family a 1919 Peace Regatta programme from Wednesday 3
^rd
July when Shrewsbury had rowed against Pembroke College Cambridge.  I also found two Henley flags, from 1919 and 1920, rolled up in a suitcase belonging to Willie Irvine.  Then Richard Owen sent me an original Times press cutting of the account of the race between Shrewsbury and Bedford in the final of the Elsenham Cup.  However, the most significant find amongst the rowing items was of Sandy’s Blue’s blazers, both the winter and summer ones.  Each blazers has the tailor’s label dated Feb ’22.  They had been given to his brother Kenneth for safe keeping but he felt it was better that they should be used and enjoyed by another Oxford Blue.   Like the rest of the family Kenneth was a keen oarsman.  He had rowed for Shrewsbury and for Magdalen College, Oxford, and had won an Oxford Trials cap but had not rowed for the university.  In later years, even when a busy General Practioner in Henley, he found time to coach the post-war Magdalen crews with some success.  He was well liked by these crews and he some of them well.  John Gleave had rowed for Magdalen 1945-49, for Oxford 1946-48 and for Leander 1948-49.  When Kenneth thought it time to pass the blazers on John was the Oxford Blue whom he knew best. He gladly accepted the blazers and promised to look after them whilst they were in his care. There is no doubt in my mind that Sandy would have been delighted to know his blazers were with such a distinguished oarsman.

John Gleave contacted me in March 2001 to tell me that he had had the blazers since the mid-1950s.  He had been wondering what to do with them and after the appearance of the book decided to offer them back to the family for further safe-keeping.  He had worn them on special occasions and apart from replacing the silk bindings on the summer blazer and letting out its shoulders a little, the blazers are unaltered. 

Further searches in the attics at Bryn Llwyn did not reveal any more material directly relating to Sandy.  I had hoped his photograph album from Spitsbergen might have come to light or perhaps photographs from the early part of the voyage to Darjeeling.  There were, instead, boxes and boxes of correspondence relating to the family, meticulously bound and labelled by Willie.  Apart from over two hundred letters from Hugh to his parents written during the First World War there was one surprise discovery.  It was a travel diary from the early nineteenth century by a John Irvine who had journeyed around Switzerland on foot, crossing several passes including the Simplon and the St Gotthard over a period of two years, often in the company of a German guide.  He made a trip to Wengen in July of 1827, climbing up onto the Aletsch glacier and spending a night in a hut in the shadow of the Jungfrau.  The letter was written in tiny but clear handwriting with a sketched map showing all the places he stopped and the heights to which he ascended.  It would seem that Sandy was not the first Irvine to set foot or ski on the Aletsch glacier.  Perhaps Willie had shown this letter to Sandy before he went out to Mürren in 1923. 

There was more to come: in February 2001 I was approached by two independent film makers who asked me if I should be interested in helping them to put together a documentary about the life of Sandy Irvine.  They were interested in finding out as much as they could about his life prior to the Mount Everest expedition.  It was great fun to find others who were as enthusiastic as I about Sandy’s early life and Dave Bimson and Mike James had knowledge that I had not about where to look for old films. They found, to my delight, footage of the 1922 and 1923 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Races.   This was the first time I had ever seen film footage of Sandy and it was very touching to watch him striding down to the river carrying his oar, smiling broadly at the camera.

These two also succeeded in tracking down another individual who remembered meeting Sandy, namely Harry Abraham.  Now nearly ninety-two, he was the son of Ashley Abraham, one of the so-called Abraham or Keswick brothers who had been leading lights in promoting rock climbing in the early part of the twentieth century, writing books on climbs in the Lake District and North Wales as well as putting up many first routes in the Alps.  It was George Abraham who had written a letter of recommendation to the Mount Everest committee suggesting they consider including Sandy. 

Harry Abraham gave the most lucid and moving interview, speaking for over two hours about his recollection of meeting Sandy Irvine at the Screes, the Abraham family home in Keswick, in the summer of 1923.  He was fourteen and a half at the time but his memories were as clear as if it had happened only yesterday.  He recalled the afternoon when George Abraham phoned Ashley from the photography shop they owned in Keswick to say that Sandy would be dropping in to talk about photographic equipment for the Mount Everest expedition for which he hoped to be selected.  ‘My father told us that we’d be holding back supper because we’d got a chap coming to see us who was trying his damnedest to be a member of the next expedition to climb Mount Everest.  “He’s getting himself fit, he’s been climbing in the Lake District and he’s been to see Uncle George”’ Ashley had told Harry and his mother.

Sandy arrived at the house a little before 6pm and after being greeted formally in the hall was led into the dining room.  Harry took up his accustomed place at the right hand side of the dining table and his father sat down beside him with Sandy opposite.  ‘As I remember him,’ Harry recalled, ‘he had knickerbockers on and a reaper jacket, which rather appealed to me at the time. He was extremely fit and he looked a tough cookie. I had the impression from the way he spoke with my father that he was a young chap fighting very, very hard to win support for a nomination by Odell who had suggested him for the 1924 expedition. He was a ‘getting into action’ chap.’ Harry was struck, too, by Sandy’s physique.  ‘He was strong and well built with tremendously strong hands.  As he ate his meal he reached out for the salt and pepper and seemed to do it with his left hand rather than his right.’  Although Sandy was indeed right handed I have often found myself wondering whether in fact he was not  naturally left handed. This might explain his poor handwriting and spelling rather better than the other theory put forward that he was mildly dyslexic.

Over a dinner of poached salmon and new potatoes they talked all the while about what would happen if Sandy were picked for the Mount Everest expedition.  One of the matters occupying him was what would be the best kind of camera to take to Tibet.   Ashley Abraham was able to advise him that of the two best cameras available at the time the Rolleiflex 2 ½ x 2 ½ would be the most suitable for the job, seeing that it was light, reliable and producing an image of such quality that it could be enlarged to a foot or more square.  Sandy seemed obsessed with a need to reduce weight to the minimum and Harry remembered him worrying about the very last detail on his climbing boots, quizzing his father about the weight and suitability of different sorts of nails whilst acknowledging that avoidance of frostbite was a very real concern.  He was obviously determined to leave no stone unturned and to prepare himself in every possible way. They talked too about the oxygen apparatus and Sandy confessed that he was going to have to learn all about the system before he went on the expedition.  He seemed to realise even then that it would be up to him of all the team members to ensure a functioning, preferably light-weight apparatus would be carried to the high camps for the final assault.