No . 131 The Trusty Servant
2021 Telephone Campaign
The Telephone Campaign is run by Win Coll Soc with the specific objective of raising money for the school ’ s priorities , in particular bursaries , and updating the community on forthcoming events and school news . Callers are recruited from recent leavers and since 2009 they have sparked over £ 2.1 million of donations .
The 2021 Telephone Campaign will run from 15 th -19 th July . We will be writing to 2,000 OWs and parents at the end of June to invite them to be part of this year ’ s telephone campaign . For those who receive a call , this is an excellent opportunity to hear at first-hand how the school is developing and what the view is like for a young Wykehamist .
Everest Exhibition : Mallory and Morshead Remembered
100 years ago , there were three OWs climbing mountains in the Himalaya , exploring unknown territory , without oxygen , at altitudes that set records .
Of the three Everest expeditions in the early 1920s , the 1924 one is , of course , tinged with tragedy : the death of George Leigh-Mallory ( Coll , 1900- 05 ) alongside ‘ Sandy ’ Irvine on 8th June , ‘ lost to human sight between heaven and earth while attempting Everest ’ as the memorial in Cloisters records it .
By contrast , the first ( reconnaissance ) expedition to Everest in 1921 was a triumph , not only of exploration but also of Wykehamical mountaineering : two OWs , Guy Bullock ( Coll , 1901-06 ) and Mallory , alongside the Canadian Oliver Wheeler , were the first to reach the North Col ( 7,020m / 23,030ft ) on 21 st September .
It was an incredible achievement – they saw sights that no Westerner - indeed no local - had seen until that point . Mallory wrote to his wife in June 1921 that ‘ we are about to walk off the map ’. It took weeks to get to Everest ( on foot ) and when they arrived , they spent months in the region : for this was
Mallory ’ s memorial in Cloisters
a scientific expedition ( dedicated to the geography , natural history and geology of the Himalaya ) as much as a reconnaissance of future routes to the summit .
Leading the geographical exploration , there was another OW : Henry Morshead ( E , 1896-1900 ). Morshead was head of the Survey of India team which mapped , at a scale of four miles to an inch ( c1:250,000 ), 12,000 square miles ( 31,000 km 2 ) of Himalayan country .
Morshead , an extraordinarily tough soldier and mapmaker , was also a
House Films - Call for Guest Editors
The Director recently hosted the first of a series of house films . The Chawker ’ s evening involved pre-recorded interviews and live conversation with four housedons , together with a filmed tour . For future films , we would also like to capture memories of those with a Vox Senum to describe their house before the 1960s . If you would like to be considered as a guest editor for your boarding house or as a potential interviewee , please contact the Director .
Detail from Morshead ’ s map of 1921
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