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

their race against Shrewsbury which they won by three-quarters of a length which means that Shrewsbury would have crossed the finishing line in 6.57 or 6.58 minutes.  A stupendous effort and an extraordinary achievement.  ‘Think for a moment what it must have felt like at the Mile’, Richard Owen wrote to me, ‘rowing 40, just down, boys against men, and everything to go for and nothing to lose against the crew that had already broken the course record the day before!’ There was another hidden consolation for Sandy: his crew had again showed itself faster than his brother’s Magdalen crew, which ultimately won the Grand that year, when they returned a time of 7.15 half an hour earlier.  Kitch, who always kept coaching notes, recorded that Sandy and Smith had ‘out-rowed’ the other oarsmen: as stern pair they had put up a rhythm and a pace that the others could not match.  Both Sandy and Smith had the experience of knowing that they could push themselves beyond the limit and come through, as they had proven in 1919 and went on to prove in 1923 as adversaries.
    Sandy’s last year at Shrewsbury was a very busy one.  As head of Moore’s House and Captain of Boats he had his work cut out for him.  In addition to this he was meant to be studying for his Higher Certificate, which he had to pass in order to earn a place at Oxford.  The tenor of his term as Head of House was unusual in the context of the public school traditions of the time.  Rather than pushing the new boys around and issuing punishments he preferred to encourage them and not only if they were good at sport.  Of one of his quieter contemporaries who had not excelled in any field at the school he wrote in the House fasti, or record book: ‘Quiet and persevering, he knew his own mind and made a good monitor.’  Of his friend Ian Bruce, who took over responsibility for the house rowing after Sandy had left he wrote: ‘Captaincy passes to I. R. Bruce who we feel sure will leave no stone unturned or water unchurned in his efforts to put Moores at the Head of the River’ (a reference to the fiercely contested inter-house boat races which took place each summer).
    Sandy had great patience with the boys in the years below him and showed them acts of kindness and generosity which one does not always associate with a nineteen-year- old school boy. When I was going through the letters of condolence I found one from a woman called Muriel Roberts whose son had been a first year at Shrewsbury when Sandy was Head of House.  Hesketh, the boy, had been dangerously ill in a nursing home in Shrewsbury and Sandy had made the effort to call and enquire about him daily.
When Hesketh was to have visitors Sandy used to come & sit with him, & cheer him up, & really helped him get better.  Then sweetest of all, Sandy found out that Hesketh had no appetite, & little parcels kept arriving anonymously. – it was Sandy.  Said he thought Hesketh might be tempted to eat.  His sweetness used often to bring tear to my eyes.  Then it was so lovely as Sandy was a preposter & school idol, and my boy a new nonentity!  He told me the many little yarns in which you & your husband figured, & Evelyn appeared to be the apple of his eye.  He brought her to Criccieth to see us.  Sandy was everything that a young man should be, & if my boys grow up to be half as fine a character as he was - & is – I shall not have brought them up in vain.
     
    Sandy’s friendly and generous nature, which this letter shows, was a key part of his character.  He had inherited his father’s warm and unselfish attitude towards people but he was never a do-gooder and he loved daring escapades.  A famous or, rather, infamous story stems from this period.  The Alington Hall at the schools was used as a gymnasium.  There was a very narrow ledge below a metal beam, well below the height of the gallery in the hall.  On the beam was inscribed ‘Thou shalt not be found out – 11 th