From Liverpool to the Mediterranean

1st March 1924

Sandy’s first letter was written at the end of their second day on the ship bound for Bombay. He told Lilian about the delays they experienced leaving Liverpool, where the ship was held up for several hours until the harbour master succeeded in finding enough tugs to tow them out of harbour in the strong cross-wind. That night was very rough but once they reached open sea the following day the wind dropped and the weather was calm: ‘It has been fairly mill-pondish so far nevertheless the breakfast room was almost empty & the decks are strewn with very miserable looking people. We will be in the middle of the Bay tonight so I hope we don’t have an expensive dinner': Mallory reported at the same juncture that the sea was rough, so perhaps Sandy was comparing it with the stormy experiences he had had en route for Spitsbergen.

As usual his letter contained instructions to his mother about his personal effects which he appeared to have left scattered all over the house in Birkenhead. A suitcase he had borrowed from an Oxford friend would need to be sent back, cleaned and emptied (‘I’ve left some bits of primus in it!') and his grandfather’s hymn book, which he had left on the billiard table, he asked her to hide until his return. It evidently contained anecdotes and tunes, probably irreverent, that he didn’t wish his grandfather to see by mistake. James Irvine was in his ninetieth year but he still exerted a very strong influence over the whole family and had taken Sandy aside before he sailed to give him some advice and warn him what to expect. 

In his typically dry style Sandy pointed out that what his grandfather had led to him to expect on the boat turned out in fact to be the very opposite of the reality. “He said I would hardly be on the boat before people would start singing hymns — people look more like a burial service than singing!’. In that first letter, Sandy also promised Lilian, his mother, to ‘try & live up to it’, in reference to all the expectations he knew people had about him. In those months, he had been overwhelmed with advice and good wishes from friends and family. Everyone felt involved in his adventure and they all felt enormous confidence in his ability to climb the mountain, even though there were at least seven other men who were far more experienced than he was in mountaineering. To all of them it was a matter of great personal pride that Sandy had been selected for the expedition and they were to follow its progress enthusiastically in the Times dispatches.