Fearless On Everest: the Quest for Sandy Irvine
“Everest without remembering these two names. Tom Longstaff to Willie Irvine, 21 June 1924On Friday 20 June 1924, Lilian and the two youngest children were at their holiday cottage, Ffordd Ddwr in the tiny village of Llandyrnog, below the shadow of Moel Famau. Willie was at home and had planned to go to Ffordd Ddwr for the weekend with Evelyn, who was due up from Oxford that afternoon. She had finished her exams and was intending to spend a part of the summer at home. Kenneth was at Oxford t...aking his exams for entry into Magdalen College and Hugh in Manchester where he worked as a solicitor. On Friday evening, just after 7 p.m., a telegram arrived from Arthur Hinks, secretary to the Mount Everest Committee. It read: ‘Committee deeply regret receive bad news Everest Expedition today Norton cables your Son and Mallory killed last climb remainder return safe President and Committee offer heartfelt sympathy Hinks’. That was it. There was no other information. The last Times dispatch had been published on 16th June and told of the heroic rescue by Mallory, Norton and Somervell of the four porters at Camp IV. In that article, written on 26 May Norton had spoken of the terrible cold and snow they had been enduring at Camp III and of Sandy and Somervell’s hauling the porters’ loads up the ice chimney to the North Col. He had written that they had hoped to retreat in preparation for a final assault and that Sandy Irvine, as usual, had been busy working on the oxygen apparatus. Sandy’s letter to Lilian of the same date had not even arrived in England. And now the news came that he was dead. Willie immediately telephoned Lilian in Llandyrnog and then his father, James Irvine, who was staying in the Lake District, to tell them the news. For a few hours, the tragedy was an entirely personal one but they knew that as soon as the news broke it would be in all the newspapers. It was decided that Lilian should remain in Wales with the younger children whilst Willie coped with what they rightly suspected would be an avalanche of letters and press enquiries. Willie certainly had been aware of the dangers Sandy was facing when he went to climb Everest and he had followed closely the story of the expedition, its difficulties, its dramas, all of which had been played out on a public stage. But I think nothing prepares you for the shock of the death of one of your children and he must have been heartbroken. He did not show it.The following morning the story was all over the press but Willie got up and went to work as usual. Walking across the park to the station he met an acquaintance, a Mr Angus, whom he knew slightly. They fell into step and chatted about inconsequential matters until they arrived at the station to take their respective trains. Angus got into his office to be confronted with the newspaper headlines detailing the deaths of Sandy and Mallory. He was deeply shocked and could scarcely believe that he had prattled away to Willie ‘who never for an instant disclosed what must have been a terrible sorrow’.Evelyn was taking her final exams on the Saturday morning. After breakfast a group of Sandy’s friends, including A.MoreLess
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