Maintaining and Repairing Old and Historic Buildings. John Cullinane J.
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gave the infamous answer to the question, ‘Why did you climb it?’: ‘Because it’s there.’
Only Andrew’s white-framed sunglasses (oh, so eighties!) give the decade away.
We reached the British Base Camp in the afternoon. This turned out to be a bunch of scruffy huts and more prayer flags, looking ragged; there was a cairn and tents and provisions. I had expected posh tents but they didn’t look any different to the ones we saw when walking the Munros. Yet despite the low-key nature of the camp, our moment of arrival still stands out as the most exhilarating of my life: to be there on the flanks of Everest (and not on the Nepalese side on a guided tour) and all down to our own initiative and resources was a remarkable feeling.
Unloading our rucksacks, we tried to take it all in. We were so close to Everest that the view was obscured by whiteness; it was hard to connect where we were with the myths and expectations surrounding the world’s highest mountain – she was every bit as powerful as the place she holds in our imagination. No wonder men sacrifice their lives for her, I thought, cupping a hand over my eyes to avoid the glare.
I sat down.
‘No, come on,’ said Andrew. ‘I want to go a bit further!’
‘Right now?’
‘Yes.’
I stood up.
‘OK, that’s far enough,’ he said, half an hour later. ‘I want a photograph of us with Everest in the background. Can you take a photo?’ He gave the camera to our new friend Peter, a Canadian mountaineer. ‘Actually, take loads!’
Andrew had taken off his ski-jacket. His lips were chapped and his nose, like mine, was striped with sunblock. He came and joined me in front of the camera. Together, we blinked in the sun and I relaxed into the pose. Then all of a sudden, he dropped down on one knee.
‘Andrew?’
I watched him rummage in the camera case hanging from his neck then I looked over his shoulder towards the craggy face of Everest and its snow-covered slopes.
He can’t have planned this in London.
‘Will you marry me?’
I burst out laughing. As he pushed a diamond and ruby ring over my finger, I started to weep with happiness.
I had waited so long to be asked and now when I least expected his proposal and it couldn’t have been further from my mind, there it was. Insane. In the space of a few hours, all my dreams were coming true. My next thought was, get the ring back in that box before you lose it!
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Yes!’
That night we celebrated our engagement at Base Camp with the British expedition teams who had failed to scale the Northeast ridge as the bad weather had come in. The men were tired and gruff. It felt so exciting to be there, eavesdropping on their stories, that I didn’t appreciate how disappointed they must have felt at not succeeding. One of their group was part of the mountain rescue team in Glencoe and another belonged to the Guinness family. With them were the Sherpas, quite extraordinary men who get themselves and everyone else up Everest, carrying loads, while more often than not inadequately equipped or reliant on the teams to equip them. For me, it was a glimpse into a world I would never see again.
Meanwhile, I twisted my engagement ring round and round my finger. During the trip, I’d lost so much weight that my fingers had shrunk and it didn’t fit: the ruby glinted, blood red, in the firelight. We drank whisky and ate the Scottish food provided for us by the team: tinned mince and peas followed by Dundee cake. After months of rice, the food was too rich and we were all violently sick.
Once I’d recovered, I called Mum on the UK team’s satellite phone (there were no mobile phones in those days).
‘Andrew’s asked me to marry him.’
‘What is the terminal moraine like?’ came the reply.
Mum’s a geography teacher – well, she was then – and she’s crazy about mountains. My laughter echoed around the world, distorted by the thousands of miles between Tibet and Scotland. We spoke to Dad then rang Andrew’s parents. All were relieved to hear from us and also happy with our news. The evening was as unexpected as life itself. We listened to the mountaineers’ stories and felt blissfully tired and full of whisky.
I have a photograph of Andrew on bended knee and me in sunglasses, my hair in a ponytail, looking like the happiest couple on earth.
Next morning, the rest of the tourist group left Base Camp to begin their descent but we stayed put. The British expedition team lent us a tent. We wanted to celebrate our engagement and they, perhaps to alleviate their gloom, were happy to have us there. They were all a bit depressed: the anti-climax of failing to reach the summit after years of preparation and expectation must have been hard to bear. When it was time to leave, we thumbed a ride with the team to the main road. The truck driver was a maniac and the Sherpas jumped out of the back of the truck. I remember thinking, if they’ve jumped out we’re entitled to be scared but there was no way we could escape.
We had planned to continue through to Nepal but the road was blocked due to the earthquake and so we ended up with a two-day drive, again hitched. Back in Lhasa we bought some Lux soap from the Friendship Store and took long, hot showers. I’ve never felt so clean in my life! To this day the smell of Lux, that pungent chemical perfume, takes me back to then: clean, safe and the proud owner of a sparkling ring.
Two months later, non-violent forms of protest broke out in Lhasa with demonstrations led by monks and nuns. At long last the Tibetans’ struggle for independence became associated with demands for democracy and human rights. By 1989, Tibet was closed to foreigners, martial law had been declared and Chinese soldiers were positioned on rooftops. We’d got there just in time.
To be able to enjoy the adventures of each day in the knowledge that we had made this new commitment to each other was bliss. We sent postcards of Everest as engagement announcements, which much to everyone’s amusement arrived home after us. Our wedding invitations were sealed with cut outs of Everest surrounded by a gold wedding ring, embossed in gold. On the day itself we served Everest-shaped chocolates with coffee (‘Qomolungma chocolates’, as written on the menu).
Memories of our four-day trip to Everest remain part of our marriage: they’re part of our commitment to each other and the world.
On 16 September 1989 Andrew and I were married in the village of Aldbury, Hertfordshire. By this time, my parents had moved to the Isle of Harris, which I felt was too remote for the wedding and so I rang an old family friend, Margaret Kitson. In many ways, she was my surrogate granny. The retired schoolmistress of the old village school, she was in her eighties and had decided to learn Greek in order to read the Bible in Greek. She was a Christian with a youthful spirit, a zest for life and a fairy-tale cottage with low ceilings and creeping roses.
Margaret understood things in a way I’ve rarely encountered since. The most astute comment ever made about my relationship with Andrew came from her: she said that I prevent his feet from getting stuck to the ground and he stops me flying off altogether.
I’d always loved Aldbury. It’s a picture-postcard English village with a village green, stocks and a duck pond. We were married in the Saint John the Baptist church. A local lady called Sue did the flowers and followed my then-unfashionable request for a trailing bouquet and crowns of flowers, the inspiration being A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mum and Dad had purchased my dress from Jenners, the then-independent equivalent of Harrods in Edinburgh. I made the veil, embroidered with seed pearls, which was attached to the crown of ivy and roses in my hair. My bridesmaids wore green – I’d made their dresses, too. Two of the girls hadn’t been available for fittings and the dresses unfortunately gaped at the neckline so tissues were employed as stuffing. These came in handy when my grandmother had a nosebleed during the ceremony and hankies were produced from