IN MEMORIAM

1. CHARLES WARREN
2. DR. MIKE PLINT
3. Dr. ROBERT SCOTT RUSSELL
4. ARUN SAMANT
5. ANG TEMBA SHERPA
6. THE HIMALAYAN CLUB OBITUARY

 

 

 

Charles Warren, who died aged 92, was one of the last surviving members of the British pre-war expeditions to Everest. Although an eminent physician, he also had a passion for art and literature and was the kind of civilised polymath all too rare nowadays in both the medical and mountaineering communities.

He went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1924 to read medicine but devoted most of his first year to English Literature, before focussing on the serious business of medicine and going on to complete his studies at Barts. As a young houseman, he took several months' leave in 1933 to join his first Himalayan expedition to the Garhwal region of northern India. He recently referred to it, with characteristic modesty, as 'the logical extension of an alpine holiday'. It was certainly a delightful expedition, under the imaginative leadership of Marco Pallis, a keen Tibetologist who was also an accomplished Baroque musician, entertaining mountain shepherds on the Indo-Tibetan watershed with early English viol music. However, the 'holiday, for all its lightness of touch, did include an outstanding first ascent by Charles Warren and Colin Kirkus, of 6454 metres Bhagirathi III.

The pair overcame difficulties that would have been graded severe at sea level, completing the climb in five days, carrying their own bivouac tent and all their supplies. As the expedition leader, Marco Pallis wrote, it was 'a triumphant vindication of the theory that Europeans were capable of carrying out such enterprises without the help of porters.' Success on Bhagirathi III made Warren an obvious choice for the 1935 Everest expedition. This was not a full — scale attempt, but a 'reconnaissance' led by Eric Shipton. There were just six British climbers, modestly equipped and provisioned along strictly utilitarian lines. After several weeks in the field, Warren was delighted to find at Camp III surplus cases of toffee, chocolate and Carlsbad plums, left by the 1933 expedition whose gastronomic excesses had so offended Shipton. Shipton's 1935 expedition cost £1,400.

The following year's full blown attempt, led by Hugh Ruttledge, cost £10,000 but got no higher on the mountain. Warren was again expedition doctor and in 1938 he returned a third time, under the leadership of Bill Tilman — another advocate of minimalist catering. Heavy snowfall again hampered efforts on the mountain and the team failed to reach the highpoint of the 1924 and 1933 attempts. The public may have dismissed these expeditions as failures, but in 1935 at least, failure on Everest itself was an irrelevance beside the expedition's other successes. The Nyonno Ri range, east of Everest was explored, numerous peaks around the Rongbuk Glacier including Kartaphu were climbed, as were several summits in northern Sikkim, bagged on the way back to Darjeeling, towards the end of a journey of several hundred miles. Warren was asked recently, 'How many first ascents over 20,000 feet did your team make in 1935 — was it eleven?' There was long pause, then, with the precision and perfect memory that he never lost, the nonagenarian replied, 'No — it was actually twenty six'. During the War, Warren served in the emergency medical services hospital in Bishop's Stortford, where he met his wife Dorothy, a radiologist. After the War he decided to specialise in the new field of paediatrics at Chelmsford and was at first the only paediatric consultant in Essex. He remained in the county for the rest of his medical career, becoming known to hundreds of families over a huge area. His particular speciality was the treatment of neonatal jaundice. This was normally done with exchange blood transfusions but, with Peter Broughton, Warren pioneered the use of ultraviolet light to reduce the need for transfusions. He did not return to the Himalaya after 1938, but he continued to climb in Europe. In his late sixties he was still tackling big alpine climbs such as the traverse of the Grand Combin, undeterred by eighteen hour days. His climbing partner at that time, Oliver Turnbull, recalls that these alpine holidays were always particularly enjoyable because Warren would make time on the drive across France to admire a particular cathedral or build the itinerary around an unmissable concert. Mere athleticism held little interest for him and his feeling for mountains was informed by literature, in particular by a passion for the Romantic period.

That passion, combined with bibliographic meticulousness, made him an invaluable advisor to the Wordsworth Trust, at Dove Cottage in Grasmere. Before he died, he presented to the Trust a collection over 200 items relating to the Romantic movement, including both texts and some outstanding paintings, such as Gainsborough's Langdale Pikes, David Cox's Crossing Morecambe Sands and the late Turner watercolour of Lake Como. David Warren's generous and expert support of the Wordsworth Trust arose naturally out of his affinity for the Lake District. He visited the area most summers and it was here, that he made his last rock climb, on his eightieth birthday in 1986. On reaching the summit his greatest delight was at the distance travelled by the well-shaken champagne cork.

Stephen Venables

 

 

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In all of our lives there are people we meet who stand out as unique, whose characters are powerful enough to influence our own thinking, actions, and ways of behaviour - Mike Plint was one such man. Yet he was not a great mountaineer, he had no great first ascents to his credit, and he had been on no famous expeditions. He grew up on hemp rope and nailed boots and could be spotted on the mountainside, not because of an orange cagoule, but because his lanky frame was kitted out in pre-war tweeds, knee length breeches, and a deerstalker hat. He was from a generation who horrified the rest of us by their dangerous belay techniques (over the shoulder with a twist round one wrist), who gloried in being able to drink 25 cups of tea, one after the other, after a hard day's hill walking, and who climbed in nailed boots (even after everyone else had taken to Vibram). A traditionalist through and through and damned proud of it too, sir.

He was my father's best friend and it was because of this that he gave me employment in his engineering company when I left school with little idea of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was 'Uncle Mike' and my father who failed on The Pulpit Route on Mount Tryfan and gave me my first rock climbing lead, it was he who first took me to the Alps at the age of nineteen, it was his sons, Charles and George, and I who through naive experimentation learnt how to use a compass and how to tie onto the end of a rope. For me then it was 'Uncle Mike' who pulled me up onto the first rung of adulthood, and who hauled me up my first rock climbs and later ice climbs. He was a pivotal character in my life.

Dr. Plint may not have been a brilliant climber, in fact he amusingly boasted of his in-competence in the hills, but he did possess a brilliant mind.

His life was centred around his engineering company, Plint & Partners, which made engine test beds, wind tunnels and other mechanical engineering equipment for colleges and universities around the world. Not only was he an astute businessman, setting the firm up from scratch, which grew over the years to become a successful, highly respected company, but his greatest talent was that of being a top scientist. He was more likely to be found behind a drawing board 'inventing' some new gadget than behind his desk pushing paper. He enjoyed making maps, although his propensity for becoming lost in the hills was an integral part of his reputation. He was known to have climbed a peak in the Alps convinced it was the Strugarza Graben only to find later that, in fact he had climbed the Oberer Barental. Having said that, his knowledge of the stars and the constellations was impressive. It was further evidence, if any was needed, that his super brain absorbed facts by the score on every subject under the sun. Perhaps, though, his map reading skills were limited.

I think, though, that mountains were really his first love and if I entered his office on a Monday morning he wanted to know straightaway what routes had been managed over the weekend. In later years he was a founder member of a climbing club called the Sybarites, whose aim was to enjoy classic climbs but to do it with a certain amount of style. While the rest of us were slumming it in climbing huts the Sybarites were eating good food, drinking fine wine and staying in posh hotels. When it came to scholarly knowledge of climbing, Mike had a particular obsession with the Bullock Workmans. I think it must have been that he admired their 'Sybaritic' style of Himalayan exploration, and the sheer audacity of their journeys and climbs. He lectured to the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society on their history, and I believe he was hoping to write a book about them. His son George has passed me a box full of files and notes which I could make available if any member has a serious interest in pursuing this project of Mike's.

He was, I know, proud to be a member of the Himalayan Club and had lived and travelled extensively in India. He met my father there during the war when both of them were enjoying the privileges of being officers of the British Raj. They raced horses, went climbing in tennis shoes on the Peperbox Rocks (near Kutab Minar), and during times of leave travelled further afield in search of adventure in the Himalaya. Like many people who travel to India, the land is never forgotten and Mike (and my father) travelled back many times in later years.

Writing this personal tribute has brought many fond memories to the surface. He was an infinitely kind man, sensitive, perceptive and not a sufferer of fools. Highly educated, widely read, massively intelligent, he could make you feel quite inadequate but at the next moment his kindliness would make you feel special and valued. A fine motivator, a Victorian philosopher, a strict disciplinarian, an ever so slightly eccentric English boffin.

He is survived by two sons and three grandchildren.

Steven Berry

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Scott Russell who died in 1999, aged 86, would probably not feel that his mountaineering achievements deserved an obituary. He remarked a few years ago, 'the only thing I was much good at was step- cutting and that has become redundant with modern equipment.' His first ascents were confined to relatively low peaks in New Zealand's Southern Alps, and the last serious mountaineering he did was fifty years ago, when he was 26. So why an obituary in a climbing journal?

First, this is less an obituary than a tribute to a good friend. Second, it would be a sad thing if mere climbing achievements were the only measure of a person's worth. Third, for all his modesty about those achievements, Scott lived in interesting times and was for climbers of my generation a link with some of the great pioneers, going back almost to Victorian times. He was born in 1913 and in 1921 emigrated with his family to New Zealand, to grow up in the small town of Nelson, at the northern tip of the South Island. He grew quickly to love the wild hills above Nelson, where he spent most of his spare time with his elder brother, Edgar, and by the time he was an undergraduate at Otago University he had joined the New Zealand Alpine Club. Kiwi climbers learn their mountaineering the hard way.

The oceanic climate is perverse, glaciers are huge, the rivers are fast and fierce, the trackless evergreen forests make every approach an adventure and the rock, when you eventually reach it, is often friable. When Scott first climbed in the Lake District, in his twenties, he took ages to lose the habit of testing every hold gingerly. In the Southern Alps he had always assumed that rock would be rotten, particularly as he made a point of exploring unknown mountains, in particular the cirque around Elcho Creek, where he made first ascents of all the major summits. They were not as grand as Cook, Tasman and the other famous peaks just to the north, but he preferred to explore uncharted territory, developing the kind of tough self-reliance for which New Zealand mountaineers are renowned. His only regret was that the peaks bore dull Anglo-Saxon labels, like Ward and Jackson - so boring beside the poetical euphony of native Maori names.

In 1936 Scott Russell returned to England to start postgraduate research in Botany at Imperial College in London. The antipodean connection may have coloured his admiration for George Ingle Finch, a professor at the college, who had grown up in Australia. It was Finch who had established a new altitude record on the 1922 Everest expedition and whose own personal account of that attempt had concluded his book The Making of a Mountaineer. He had long been a hero and Scott was thrilled to meet the man who would later become his father-in-law. He joined the Alpine Club and started attending George Winthrop Young's Easter meets at Pen-y-Pass, making friends with contemporaries such as Jack Longland, Robin Hodgkin and David Cox. As he was the first to acknowledge, they were stronger rock- climbers - amongst the best of their day, with some of the hardest new routes on Cloggy to their credit - but they became lifelong friends. Returning from the New to the Old World, Scott at last had a chance to visit the European Alps and in 1937 - his only proper alpine season - he achieved a cherished ambition by climbing one of the routes immortalised in Finch's book - the Zmutt Ridge of the Matterhorn. The following year he was on the Imperial College expedition to the arctic island of Jan Mayen. He climbed both summits of the extinct volcano Beerenberg; the north-east peak was previously unclimbed and he named it after the English geographer, Richard Hakluyt.

On the scientific side he recorded cosmic rays and investigated the effects of the Arctic climate on plant metabolism, already at this stage more interested in the mechanics of plant physiology than in the botanical explorer's more traditional pursuit of taxonomy. He hoped for many years to continue the pattern started on Jan Mayen, combining academic research with exploration and he was still writing up his Arctic results in April 1939 when he sailed for India, bound for the greatest mountain range on earth. The 1939 Karakoram Expedition, as it turned out, was to be Scott's only visit to the Himalaya, but what a visit! Within three years of returning to England he had got himself invited to join the greatest mountain explorer of his day, Eric Shipton, who always had a soft spot for climbers reared in New Zealand. The great man had grandiose plans to sort out all the mapping details left incomplete after his 1937 Karakoram expedition, in particular the Biafo/Hispar glacier system. Having completed that work, the team would then travel in the autumn over the Shimshal Pass to winter in the wild Shaksgam valley, taking advantage of the dried-out frozen conditions of the normally flooded rivers to survey huge tracks of unmapped country, heading east and finally finishing in Leh in the summer of 1940.

Shipton and his companions just hoped that the Hitler would somehow be persuaded to delay his plans in Europe, leaving them free to roam for fifteen months through the wilds of Central Asia, before returning home. In September, Hitler invaded Poland, England declared war and Shipton's team had to abandon their expedition. However, they had already achieved an astonishing amount. Their survey included the Hispar Glacier and all its three main tributaries, the Chogolungma and Kerolungma, the Sokha, Solu and Susbun, the Panmah system, the Sim Gang, Snow Lake and the Biafo. Anyone who has travelled in those regions will appreciate the scale of the undertaking. This was serious surveying, all done on foot and resulting in major corrections to the map. The length of the Hispar, for instance was reduced from the Bullock - Workmans' estimate of 40 miles to a true length nearer 30; whereas the Biafo proved bigger than previously calculated. Fanny Bullock-Workman's peak above the Hispar Pass proved to be nearer 19,000 than 21,000 feet. Those hard- won statistics, resulting eventually in a magnificent map, and Scott's botanical experiments were the official justification for a journey of pure enchantment.

Scott always spoke of his time in the Karakoram with nostalgic fondness and his written account evokes all the magic of those great glaciers, which has still not been lost, even now when you can drive there in two days, instead of walking in civilised manner all the way from Srinagar. What emerges above all from his accounts of that summer of 1939 is the sense of total ENJOYMENT. He captures the delight of contrast, descending from the bleak wastes of the Nushik La to the green fields of the Basha valley, then repeating the same process over the Sokha La. He evokes the sublime vista over Snow Lake from the Hispar Pass, which had then only ever been seen by three or four Western parties. He recalls the enjoyment of working with Shipton and the Sherpas who revered him above all other mountaineers, sharing all the climbs and journeys, descending every three weeks or so to villages to re-stock with local food. The end came abruptly in the form of a letter delivered to the Biafo Glacier, with news that Hitler had invaded Poland on September 2. By then it was the third week of September and Scott rushed back over to a depot on the Hispar Glacier, where he could tune into the radio and get confirmation from the BBC World Service. Three days later, after yet another crossing of the Hispar Pass, he made a rendezvous with Shipton on Snow Lake to pass on the grim news.

Over forty years later, recalling that surreal evening on one of the grandest glacial amphitheatres on earth, Scott said how the two men had sat up all night talking about the future - wondering what on earth was going to happen, how long the War would last, what they would do afterwards. Shipton mentioned the possibility of Nepal opening its doors to foreigners and dreamed aloud of visiting the home valley of his Sherpa companions to try a southern route up Everest, then said that, no, by the time the War was over he would be too old to lead Everest expeditions. Twelve years later, of course, he changed his mind and jumped at the chance to visit Solu Khumbu. Whilst waiting for other expedition members to join them and return to Gilgit, Scott and Shipton climbed to one of their objectives - the Khurdopin Pass, on the rim of Snow Lake. They had hoped actually to cross the pass and explore the northern side, but a sense of duty compelled them to make that watershed the limit of their journey. The pass was eventually crossed from the north in 1986 by Ian Haig, who died in a crevasse accident; our party and a Canadian team repeated the crossing from the south a year later.

For Scott Russell the physical watershed proved an emotional one which he described in his book Mountain Prospect: 'All that followed was to be one long descent. Interest and enjoyment the downward marches held; but as I look back it seems that a gate was then closed - the gate that led to free planning of our lives, and the key to reopen it is still in an uncertain future.' Those words were written in Singapore, as a prisoner of the Japanese. The irony is that it had taken Scott months to get a commission before being dispatched to the Far East just in time for the British surrender. He and Shipton might just as well have continued with their plans to spend 1940 in the Shaksgam valley, instead of rushing home to offer their services to unreceptive bureaucrats. In Changi Jail he must have suffered dreadfully, but he rarely spoke of those days, just once mentioning the occasion just before the Allies retook Singapore, when he and his fellow prisoners were all moved without explanation to a remote holding ground, wondering if they were all about to be shot. He must have witnessed terrible suffering during his three-and-a-half years' incarceration, but he helped to supplement his fellow prisoners' starvation diet by tending a vegetable garden. To sustain his spirit, like W H Murray in a German prisoner-of-war camp, he set about handwriting his mountaineering memoir on a wad of military forms - 'things beloved by military minds that clutter soldiers even in retreat.' Mountain Prospect was published just after the War in 1946. It is to my mind a classic, long overdue for reprinting. The prose is unashamedly romantic, but beautifully lucid with flashes of humorous irony. The modesty is tempered by firm opinions that reflect the man's character, for he was splendidly opinionated. It is also, inevitably, nostalgic, written under such extraordinary conditions, coloured by a sense that the Karakoram expedition was a never-to-be-repeated Indian summer.

As it turned out, that was Scott's last expedition, for after the War other priorities took over. He became absorbed by his scientific career, first lecturing at Oxford, then setting up the Agricultural Research Council Radiobiological Laboratory, devoted to monitoring and predicting the consequences of nuclear fall-out on food crops and human nutrition; and he became absorbed by the pleasures of bringing up his family with George Finch's daughter Anne, whom he married in 1946. Although she was also a climber, the family - and their magical garden in Oxfordshire - took over. Nevertheless, Scott took a keen interest in what others were doing in the mountains. Coming from a pre-war generation of climbers, his centre of gravity was the Alpine Club, where he attended occasional meetings almost up to his death. In the privacy of home, pausing for frequent gougings and puffings at his pipe, plying his guests with generously large quantities of whisky and brandy, he would deliver opinions on fellow members. They were usually generous opinions but he disliked anything that smacked of snobbery or humbug. He liked to recall the time one particularly pompous worthy had snubbed his son Andrew at the Alpine Club dinner, announcing that he did not speak to young men with long hair (this was back in the seventies, when we DID look horrendous). Scott was delighted when his old friend Bill Tilman stepped in promptly to brush aside the club elder and announce loudly to Andrew Russell, 'Aren't you the grandson of my old hero Finch - let me get you a drink.' Andrew died in an avalanche on a Nepalese peak called Sisne, in 1977. I only got to know Scott ten years later, through our mutual interest in the Khurdopin Pass. He rarely mentioned the accident, but it was obvious what a blow it had been. With some fathers the sadness might have become bitter and resentful, but with him it was a private grief that never impinged on his enthusiasm for what other younger climbers were doing. Above all, it seemed that the tragedy never stole his belief that mountains, for all their dangers, were there to be ENJOYED.

Stephen Venables

 

 

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The morning of 17 July 1998 sparkled with the brilliant intensity of a diamond caught in a beam of light. From our eyrie at 5800 m on an unnamed, unclimbed peak in the Chango glacier of Kinnaur, Ravi Wadaskar and I watched three tiny dots moving up the vast northwestern flanks of Leo Pargial; we could not help grinning to ourselves as we thought-sped our good wishes to Arun Samant and his two climbing companions — Anil Chavan and C. Dorjee — across the wide gap of the glacial valley. We were truly impressed with the rapidity of their lightweight ascent. We watched them through our binoculars, pitching camp in the afternoon and in our hearts we wished them well for the morrow.

The next morning dawned crystal clear as well and our hopes for our friends remained high. We busied ourselves with the small housekeeping chores involved in packing up and heading down to base camp. As we descended later, a huge mass of cloud seemed to appear out of nowhere and settled down menacingly over Leo Pargial, shrouding Arun and his friends in masses of grey. We cursed the weather on their behalf, almost sure that their summit chances were dwindling by the minute.

But I had not reckoned with Arun's steely determination. As we lounged around base camp the next evening, a visibly tired Dorjee staggered into camp with a wide grin on his face : yes, he told us, they had reached the summit. Arun walked in a little later and we all hugged him and congratulated him for his achievement. In five days from base camp he had ascended and descended a new route on this 6791 m mountain in good style.

Though I had known Arun vaguely for more than a decade, it was only on this particular expedition that our friendship was finally cemented. I found it easy to get along with this slim, tall man who commanded immense respect in the Mumbai mountaineering fraternity.

His warmth, generosity, and commitment to any project he was involved in, were qualities which endeared him to all those who came in contact with him. His contribution in finally making the Tata Everest '98 expedition a success is acknowledged by all those who were involved in that particular project.

A structural engineer by training, he ran a successful consultancy and even lent his expertise freely to community projects executed by agencies like the BNHS.

His commitment to the cause of climbing in India was total : as Treasurer and then Secretary of the Himalayan Club, he devoted his energies and his talents to help make the Club what it is today. He was always accessible to the greenest of greenhorns and was ever ready to help and encourage mountaineers who were about to embark on their maiden ventures. Many issues of the annual Journal would be that much poorer without his meticulously executed sketch maps that accompanied many of the articles.

His own preference in the last few years of his life tended more towards the small, mobile expedition to areas with untapped potential, like the Losar, Lingti and Chango valleys. And during the course of these trips he flowered and matured to his full potential as a leader, an all round mountaineer, a photographer, and a writer.

I consider it a privilege to have been associated with him for the last few years and shall always cherish our friendship and our mountain memories.

Aloke Surin

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Ang Temba, Himalayan Club Roll No. 155, passed away on 21st April '99 in Darjeeling after a prolonged illness. He was 79.

Ang Temba came to Darjeeling from Thame village in Shar Khumbu, Nepal when he was only 15 years old. He is one less now among the very few surviving Sherpas of that renowned era of explorations and the first ascents of the Himalayan high peaks.

Although Ang Temba had come to Darjeeling in 1935, the records show that his climbing career began in 1947 when he carried and served for the Swiss Himalayan Expedition under the leadership of the Swiss Mountain Guide and Civil Engineer, Andre Roch. The expedition had explored and made the first ascents of a number of major peaks of the Garhwal Himalaya. In 1949, Ang Temba is again mentioned with the Swiss climbers, Sutter and Lohner climbing in the northern ranges of the Kangchenjunga. In 1951, Ang Temba joined the British expedition led by Marsh to attempt Nanga Parbat and climb in the Karakoram range.

In the summer of 1952, Ang Temba was climbing with the successful French expedition on Chaukhamba. The same year, when the post monsoon Swiss expedition was making a reinforced attempt, after their failure in the pre monsoon bid, Ang Temba was included in the Sherpa team whence he carried heavy loads to the highest camps and to South Col. The expedition leader, Chevalley's remarks in recognition of Ang Temba's worth during the expedition, ' praise worthy in the great courage, endurance and devotion he has shown in the adverse conditions, we recommend him highly in future expedition', had got Ang Temba another chance on Mt. Everest in 1953 in the select team under the Sirdarship of the legendary Sherpa Tenzing in the historic British expedition. Ang Temba shared, though in small measures, the crowning glory of the first ascent of the supreme Himalayan peak, Everest. He was among the recipients of the TIGER MEDAL awarded to the Sherpa team, accompanied by another one, the CORONATION MEDAL of Queen Elizabeth II, given to all members of the expedition.

The TIGER MEDAL was instituted by the Himalayan Club, and it was first awarded to the ten most outstanding High Altitude Sherpas in 1935 as recognition for their performance, courage and devoted service to the cause of Himalayan ventures of the Ang Temba Sherpa time.

In 1954, with the birth of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, Ang Temba was selected with six other select Sherpas, again with Tenzing Norgay, to undergo an Instructors Training Course in Switzerland. He was subsequently employed in the newly founded Himalayan Mountaineering Institute on its roll of instructors. Since then Ang Temba went on to assist and climb with many small and large expeditions whenever he could be spared from his instructional duties at the HMI. He went once more to Everest as a member of the first Indian attempt on this mountain in 1960.

Ang Temba served the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute for 28 years and retired in 1982 from the post of Senior Instructor. He is survived by his wife, two sons following in his footsteps as HMI Instructors and two daughters.

Ang Temba is greatly missed by his climbing friends in Darjeeling.

Dorjee Lhatoo

 

 

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