By Hamish Brown

The other chapters of this story can be found here. Part One Part Three

The children used to draw in great gulps of air every time they left or returned home: enter, and the air bore a pervasive, sweet tang of wood; depart, and one met the freshness of sea breezes. Dave came to think it a pointer that his mother usually wrinkled her nose every time she returned home.

As a boy Dave used to think his father was henpecked, but as he passed through adolescent years he discovered the iron that lay below the veneer of quietude. And Dennis would secretly smile as he saw the same traits emerge in his gangly son. Exmoor gave Dave his love of the open air, so he gravitated to botany and then geology, but, faced with the life-long prospect, however lucrative, of working in the new oil world, he finished his Ph.D. and then started out to be a doctor -- an eye surgeon ultimately -- as this could take him to further distant ranges and would allow him to put something back into those proud but poor places whose peoples he so much admired. The Alps naturally led to further ranges and "he who looks on Nanda Devi will be looking for ever" as he'd heard one of their porters, Sher Singh, remark at Joshimath, during the one Himalayan trip he'd had. (First ascents of Deo Damala and Mangraon.)

Being a perpetual student was very satisfying and his had work and hard play made for a happy, balanced life wherever he was. Once he'd got his father to come up to the Lakes and a long day over High Street had heen the first and last such joint venture. "I don't get you carving a Madonna, lad, and I'm not going to hamstring your mountain strides" Dennis had declared over in the Glenridding Hotel.

Mutual respect led to a growing friendship between father and son, a rather rare phenomenon in the fractious sixties. They liked each other's company. They liked the old house. They could talk over pints till all hours or sit before a blaze of scented wood in companionable silence. Dennis also enjoyed meeting the climbing friends or girl friends Dave would bring when climbing on Bosigran.

Dennis had always given Dave his head and if some of the climbing escapades alarmed the old man, he never let on. The idea of Dave eventually serving poor people as a doctor pleased him immensely. He just regretted seeing less of Dave as he was studying medicine at Dundee. "Nearer to the hills" Dave had grinned at his father.

Just after Easter Dennis had gone to the doctor as he had been feeling increasingly poorly for some time. Hearing he'd been 'holidaying' in Turkey the young doctor had done little more than give him a tonic. He did not get any better, in fact he became very much worse, and when, in late June, he was taken to hospital for a real check-up it was to discover bowels and organs riddled with cancer. He said nothing about this in his letters to Dave or Julie, but Dave had naturally called in as soon as term ended. His father did not look too bad and simply wouldn't talk about himself or hear of Dave cancelling his Alps trip. They knew each other too well to argue.

Dave outlined his plans, ambidous as ever, now being into first British ascents or new routes on the Chamonix aiguilles . It was an extra agony to smile and smile knowing this was the last he'd see of his son.

He'd made his peace with himself and his work. The big memorial for Wells Cathedral, the finest cathedral in England as he thought of it, would never be completed -- by him. (It was later completed as a a memorial to him.) He wrote a long letter to Julie who had gone so far from his life but seemed happily married and 'about time', was going to become a mother. Would he hang on long enough to be a grandfather? He also wrote to his wife but had no address for the letter. He tore it up. How extraordinary, how sad, that such separateness could happen. The mother of Julie and Dave might as well have been dead. Maybe she was. She had vanished, had written one letter, and never been heard of again. Not that he had tried to contact her. He was a proud man.

(To be continued next month.)

You can find more articles in the archive under The Bothy.