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

balding and could not have been her ideal choice, but he was rich and kind and Marjory envisaged a marvellous life of pleasure and luxury.  They were married in January 1917, shortly after his fifty-second birthday, and at 19 she became mistress of Cornist Hall. The marriage was doomed from the start: Marjory was far closer in age to HS’s children.  ‘So far as I was concerned,’ Dick wrote later, ‘I was always very good friends with Marjory, and as I grew up I found her quite amusing, but of course she had no idea of looking after a person of my age.’
    Initially Marjory rather enjoyed her new life. She entered Cornist like a whirlwind, startling the staff right, left and centre with her extravagant ways and her sometimes impulsive and impatient manner.  HS tolerated her independence since her vivacious nature brought the light and laughter into his life that had been lacking.  But before long, life at Cornist began to pall and Marjory was bored.  She turned her attentions to the young officers at the nearby army camp at Kinmel and RAF Sealand, close to the steel works.  She used to invite them to dine and party at Cornist, entertaining on a flamboyant scale and making serious inroads into the wine cellar. Marjory took immense pleasure in teaching her guests to dance to the latest tunes and many a young man learned to foxtrot at Cornist.  She also liked the blues and introduced Dick’s friends, as well as the officers, to the delights of dancing the blues with her, but her pièce de résistance was the twirl.  Cornist was alive with the sounds of dancing and laughter late into the night, such a dramatic contrast to the house when HS was at home.
    For Sandy, Marjory added an exotic sparkle to his visits to Cornist.  She introduced him to the kind of entertainment that would have been frowned upon by his parents.  She took him and Dick to the theatre in Liverpool and London, they drove out in the Rolls Royce for extravagant picnics, and of course she taught him to dance.  Dick was always glad to have Sandy to accompany him when Marjory was entertaining and Sandy was always quick to admit how much his friendship with Dick had enriched his own life: ‘I never in my life will be able to repay you for all your kindness & the good times you have given me.’ He wrote later, ‘Just think for one moment what I would be like if I had never met you – probably never seen Town at all, certainly no Theatre – no workshop – no fun with cars – no Brooklands – no priceless holidays in the Lakes.’ And no Marjory.
    This was all far from life in Park Road South where Sandy and Evelyn, on return from their boarding schools, found their younger brothers growing up rapidly.  They were tolerated by Evelyn and Sandy but if they stepped out of line and interfered with the older pair there could be trouble.  All three younger brothers recalled being made by Sandy to stand on a pile of sticks or a plank over bricks while Sandy ignited home-made gunpowder that he had placed beneath.  They were always eager to be involved in Sandy’s test so readily agreed to participate.  There would be a blinding flash and whichever brother was in for the treatment would be fired off the pile.  The ‘experiment’, as he and Evelyn called it, could be construed as a kind of initiation.  The youngest, Tur, actually sustained a perforated ear drum as a result of the ‘experiment’. 
    Sandy rowed again at Henley in 1921 where the school VIII achieved a great but masked achievement.  They became only the second school ever to break the seven minute barrier, the first having been Eton in 1911, and this rowing as the losing crew against Pembroke College, Cambridge in the semi-final of the Ladies Plate.  Pembroke had already set a very fast time the day before against Trinity College, Oxford, winning by the tiny margin of six feet and had set a new course record for the Ladies’ of 6 minutes 55 seconds.  They matched this time in