Author: Ed Caesar
Pp: 259, including epilogue, acknowledgments, notes and image credits
Publisher: Viking (an imprint of Penguin Books)
Price: £18.99
ISBN: 978-0-241-26231-3
This book is about flying and mountaineering.
I have no interest in flying, other than as a once reasonably regular traveller between Luton Airport and one or other of Switzerland’s big three airports in pre-Covid times. Nor do I have any interest in mountaineering, other than knowing that the US film actor Clint Eastwood filmed a number of scenes for The Eiger Sanction at or around Hotel Bellevue des Alpes in Kleine Scheidegg in the Bernese Oberland in the summer of 1974. Or that the 2008 film Nordwand (The North Face) included a number of shots in the region, including from inside the Jungfraujoch railway tunnel in the Eiger.
But I was attracted to the book by the title and by the stylised representation on its cover of a mountain, which I quickly learned was Everest but to a bleary early-morning eye resembled the Jungfraujoch. So I asked the publisher for a review copy and they very kindly sent me one, which I enjoyed, not so much for the underlying subject matter but for the story and the style and quality of the writing.
The tale depicts the efforts of Maurice Wilson, a determined lone amateur in the 1930s, to tackle the challenge of climbing Everest, despite being ordered not to by the British and Indian governments and not having the permission of the government in Nepal.
It is a cross between Just William and an episode of the Ripping Yarns television comedy series by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty’s Flying Circus. Ed Caesar tells us, for instance, that the supplies for the 1922 expedition filled 900 plywood boxes, which included 60 tons of quail in foie gras and four cases of Montebello 1915 champagne from Fortnum & Mason, and that the 1924 expedition packed soup plates and carving knives.
The plan hatched the First World War veteran to fly a Gipsy Moth aeroplane to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes and then become the first person to reach its summit, all on his own, is bonkers. Particularly as he barely knew how to fly and didn’t know how to climb.
But it is compelling bonkers, featuring a starring role by Quaker Oats in getting Wilson to within touching distance of the mountain on the morning of April 12 1934. The oats were marvellous, he wrote in his diary (or Present Time Book, which was found on his body when it was discovered by members of the 1935 Everest expedition). Like a man with a sponsorship deal, Caesar adds.
‘What a game,’ wrote Wilson, on seeing Everest up close for the first time. ‘Maybe, in less than five weeks, the world will be on fire’.
Our Boy’s Own hero had earlier escaped from official scrutiny in his hotel in Darjeeling, at midnight, disguised as a Tibetan priest, wearing a Chinese brocaded waistcoat in gold, with gold buttons at the side, a fur-lined Bhutia hat, carrying a decorative umbrella, the ensemble slightly compromised in terms of disguise by his huge, heavy hobnail boots.
All the while, it seems, pining for his soul mate, Enid Evans, who was ‘enraptured by the ebullient adventurer. In his final letter to her before leaving Darjeeling, Wilson told her that if she were with him, ‘I might let you kiss me’.
As I said, the story is bonkers. But it is a must-read bonkers, for aviators, mountaineers and downright old-fashioned romantics.
