Sandy turns 22

8th April 1924

They were beginning to encounter some very cold nights as they camped on the plateau. On 8 April they had 28 degrees of frost, or a temperature of 2° F (18°C) and there was a wind of 30 m.p.h. blowing. That day Sandy celebrated his twenty-second birthday in Lung-Gye- Dok and they made of fuss of him with a particularly good meal that evening. The following night as they were sitting in the mess tent 'with twelve people and two gas lamps’ both Norton and Sandy recorded in their diaries that the temperature in the tent was 25°F (7 degrees of frost) and 10°F outside the tent. The cold was to become a familiar and recurring feature from now onwards. The clothing they had been advised to purchase in London was soon to be put to the test. Sandy wrote: ‘All today I kept quite warm by wearing thick woollen underclothes, flannel shirt, wind-proof coat, fleece lining, leather waist-coat and 3-ply burberry. But’, he added, ‘found the weight of the clothes made me quite exhausted getting onto my mule at the top of the pass'. He must have been wearing about twenty pounds of clothes.

Sandy's passion for rowing accompanied him to the Himalaya, and occupied his thoughts. The diary entry of his birthday ends with the following note: 'I still can’t get over Oxford being beaten by 4½ lengths – I would like to hear some details of the race'. He would also mention this in the letter to his mother dated April 12th: 'I long to have news why Oxford lost so badly. I’ve only had Daddys wire yet'. The previous year, Oxford, with Sandy in the crew, had beaten Cambridge.

Photo of Sandy rowing. The picture captures the victory of the Oxford team at the 1923 boat race.