Free Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine by Julie Summers

find, checking prices and delivery times, comparing performance and the availability of spare parts.  Sandy wrote long and confusing letters home to his parents, blinding them with science and enthusing about the relative attributes of different makes.   He wrote to his father in November 1919 ‘I have just heard that Padmore has just got his new Austin, which was ordered as far as I can gather a few weeks before ours.  If there is no chance of getting one for years how would it be to try & get a Varley-Woods at £660 or an Angus-Sanderson at £450?’  He had convinced himself, nevertheless, that the Austin was the vehicle for them and ultimately advised his father that ‘the Austin will be well worth waiting for if there is any chance of getting it before the summer holidays’.
    As it happened the Austin never materialised and Willie purchased an Essex in addition to the Standard that he had bought for Lilian.  The family were now the proud owners of two cars and were about to acquire a third.  This elicited further correspondence from Sandy on the subject of motoring. To his mother he wrote: ‘I’m glad you like your Standard & I’m sure you will like the Swift much more when it comes.  It’s much comfier on bad roads & will last for ever as is shown by Geoffrey Summers’s which is 6 years old & as good as new, perfectly silent & wonderfully easy to control.’
    Dick had introduced Sandy to Harry Ham, chief car mechanic in the Summers’ passenger car garage at the Works, in about 1918 and Sandy became a regular visitor to his workshop, asking him endless questions and tinkering with anything Harry would let him get his hands on.  Such was the respect that the mechanic had for Sandy’s practical skills that when the Essex needed, in Sandy’s opinion at least, substantial work doing on it to cure the rattles and bangs, he helped Sandy rebuild the car almost completely in the summer of 1920.  The pistons were replaced, the bearings scraped – a job requiring considerable skill - and together they cut out the rivets and bolted the chassis with a view to curing the ‘rock’. When the bolting was finished, Sandy picked up one end of the car and shook it vigorously to see that he had eliminated the rattles. Not the action of a weakling.  He said that the engine was so improved that when some road-hog in a bull-nosed Morris cut in on him near Queensferry, Sandy chased him in reverse, overtook him and delivered a long lecture on selfish driving.  After that the Essex continued to give good service to the family ending up in a Welsh scrapyard in 1926.  It apparently did not occur to Sandy to send through notice of his modifications to the manufacturers as to how he and Mr Ham had solved the squeaks and bumps in the car.  This was in contrast to Dick who was constantly haranguing car makers with his ideas and suggestions, mostly on the subject of petrol consumption about which he was decidedly fanatical.
    Another attraction for Sandy at Cornist was HS’s second wife, Marjory.  After his wife had died in 1906 HS had immersed himself in business but in his private life he was lonely.  In 1916, on a visit to London a doctor friend told him over a nightcap in the Liberal Club of a pretty young girl who was a patient of his, currently recovering from an appendix operation.  Her name was Marjory Agnes Standish Thomson, a chorus girl with a small part in a revival of the musical Charley’s Aunt .  He suggested HS pay her a visit and from the moment he saw her he was completely captivated.  She was very pretty, with dark hair, bright blue eyes and a charming, sunny personality.  After only three visits he proposed to her and she agreed to marry him. When she told her friend and fellow chorus girl, Elsa Trepess about HS, Marjory enthused ‘He’s very rich, I’ll marry him, yes, I’ll marry him and we’ll have a marvellous time.  But don’t tell the nurses!’ Harry Summers was middle-aged, squat and