only one had ever successfully reached the top. ‘Brummy’ Stokes and
‘Bronco’ Lane, in the 1970s, reached the summit in atrocious conditions. The bad weather then drove them back. In escaping, they suffered very severe frostbite and lost several toes to
the cold; but they had heroically survived. Apart from this expedition, all the other military attempts had been turned away empty-handed; and much lower down.
One of the fundamental reasons, we believed, for this run of military sponsored teams not reaching the top was the size of their expeditions. They had always taken tens of people and mounted
huge assaults, with the intention of eventually choosing just two or three to actually go for the top. Within a military framework, this inherently bred excessive competition rather than mutual
support. In an environment such as Everest, this all too often spelt disaster.
Another mistake, I believe, was having too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Mountains are great levellers and care nothing for hierarchy – least of all ‘chiefs’. From my
time in the hills I have learnt a fundamental lesson: mountains are only ever climbed by ‘Indians’.
So we didn’t leave to any resplendent military fanfare. On the contrary, the Army understandably thought that we would go the same way as all the previous attempts. All we received from
them was a promise of a party if we returned alive. I guess that is the way the world works.
With the team established, we started to train together as much as possible. My old motto of ‘two steps at a time up the stairs’ wasn’t going to wash here. For months, day in,
day out, we’d train, focusing hard on what lay ahead. Weekend after weekend was spent in the hills of Brecon, climbing for hours at a time with rucksacks loaded with rocks and thick dusty old
books from home. I would then run for whole evenings during the week, along the miles of coastal hills in Dorset – cursing the British weather as I stomped across the steep fields.
Doing this endlessly, even when it was pissing with rain, cold and dark, and when all you really wanted to do was go out in London and be ‘normal’, was what would make the real
difference later on. This is simply self-discipline. I had lived this sort of life before whilst training for the SAS selection, and swore I would never live it again. Yet three years later, here I
was once more.
Mick and I worked a lot together, swimming countless lengths of the local pool – one underwater, then one on the surface, for hours at a time. This boosts one’s ability to work
without oxygen, making the body more efficient. Swimming in any rivers or seas was also fair game, but as it was winter, the excursions were rarely more than about three and a half seconds long,
before we would be seen running frantically back to the relative warmth of the car’s heater.
We would bicycle everywhere, run everyone’s and anyone’s dog round the woods in all weathers, until the ageing animals passed out with exhaustion. Even in dinner jackets, hills were
rarely passed unclimbed as we scrambled to the top of them – often resulting in us being obscenely late for the party.
Despite sounding a little bananas, it was in fact the only way we stayed vaguely sane in the middle of the struggle of organizing all the equipment and sponsorship, prior to departure. My
training was my secret escape, and, I guess, my chance to let go of all the tension that was accruing.
Time seemed to tick away with unusual speed. By now I had found one main sponsor, the Services charity, ‘SSAFA Forces Help’ (Soldier, Sailor and Airmen Families
Association), who backed part of my costs for the expedition. They proved great fun to work with, as well as being outrageously efficient. Yet despite having got some of the way with SSAFA, I was
still a whopping amount of money short.
Robert Louis Stevenson said that ‘to be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity’.
‘Bronco’ Lane, in the 1970s, reached the summit in atrocious conditions. The bad weather then drove them back. In escaping, they suffered very severe frostbite and lost several toes to
the cold; but they had heroically survived. Apart from this expedition, all the other military attempts had been turned away empty-handed; and much lower down.
One of the fundamental reasons, we believed, for this run of military sponsored teams not reaching the top was the size of their expeditions. They had always taken tens of people and mounted
huge assaults, with the intention of eventually choosing just two or three to actually go for the top. Within a military framework, this inherently bred excessive competition rather than mutual
support. In an environment such as Everest, this all too often spelt disaster.
Another mistake, I believe, was having too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Mountains are great levellers and care nothing for hierarchy – least of all ‘chiefs’. From my
time in the hills I have learnt a fundamental lesson: mountains are only ever climbed by ‘Indians’.
So we didn’t leave to any resplendent military fanfare. On the contrary, the Army understandably thought that we would go the same way as all the previous attempts. All we received from
them was a promise of a party if we returned alive. I guess that is the way the world works.
With the team established, we started to train together as much as possible. My old motto of ‘two steps at a time up the stairs’ wasn’t going to wash here. For months, day in,
day out, we’d train, focusing hard on what lay ahead. Weekend after weekend was spent in the hills of Brecon, climbing for hours at a time with rucksacks loaded with rocks and thick dusty old
books from home. I would then run for whole evenings during the week, along the miles of coastal hills in Dorset – cursing the British weather as I stomped across the steep fields.
Doing this endlessly, even when it was pissing with rain, cold and dark, and when all you really wanted to do was go out in London and be ‘normal’, was what would make the real
difference later on. This is simply self-discipline. I had lived this sort of life before whilst training for the SAS selection, and swore I would never live it again. Yet three years later, here I
was once more.
Mick and I worked a lot together, swimming countless lengths of the local pool – one underwater, then one on the surface, for hours at a time. This boosts one’s ability to work
without oxygen, making the body more efficient. Swimming in any rivers or seas was also fair game, but as it was winter, the excursions were rarely more than about three and a half seconds long,
before we would be seen running frantically back to the relative warmth of the car’s heater.
We would bicycle everywhere, run everyone’s and anyone’s dog round the woods in all weathers, until the ageing animals passed out with exhaustion. Even in dinner jackets, hills were
rarely passed unclimbed as we scrambled to the top of them – often resulting in us being obscenely late for the party.
Despite sounding a little bananas, it was in fact the only way we stayed vaguely sane in the middle of the struggle of organizing all the equipment and sponsorship, prior to departure. My
training was my secret escape, and, I guess, my chance to let go of all the tension that was accruing.
Time seemed to tick away with unusual speed. By now I had found one main sponsor, the Services charity, ‘SSAFA Forces Help’ (Soldier, Sailor and Airmen Families
Association), who backed part of my costs for the expedition. They proved great fun to work with, as well as being outrageously efficient. Yet despite having got some of the way with SSAFA, I was
still a whopping amount of money short.
Robert Louis Stevenson said that ‘to be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity’.
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