First Scholarship Students Chosen

The two students who will be the first to receive funding for their scholarships from the Noel Walshe Memorial fund have been chosen. They are:

1) Miss Sarki Sherpa who passed her SLC in First Division from Taksindu (Nunthala) High School. She is enrolled in Solukhumbu Multiple Campus, Salleri with Education as her major subject. The funds will be sent quarterly to her with the mail runner from Ang Rita who is the chief administrative officer of the Himalayan Trust based in Kathmandu. Her course is 2 years. Her home is Ringmo village in Solukhumbu.

2) Nima Tenzing Lama from Junbesi High School passed his SLC in First Division with 75%. He is in Kathmandu studying in Sidhartha Vanasthali college with Hotel Management as his major subject. Nima Tenzing is the top student from Junbesi SLC group for the 2009 results.

Ang Rita will shortly send their photographs which we will put on our website and blog and periodically will let you know how they are progressing.

A Big Thankyou To All

Along with Noel's brother Will, his sisters Liz, Pauline and Tricia and myself (Ann) we would like to thank everyone who has contacted us for their concern, kindness and support. We have been overwhelmed by the wonderful messages and tributes to Noel.

Donations in memory of Noel for the Himalayan Trust have totalled £1200.00 and this money will be used to fund two scholarships in Nepal for one boy and one girl, to be known as 'The Noel Walshe Memorial Scholarships'. We fully intend to keep these scholarships ongoing for many years and hope to be in a position to fund scholarships for many children over the coming years.

More information will be available when the details have been finalised.

Sad News

It is with great sadness that we have to tell our many friends and colleagues of the sudden and unexpected death of our great friend and Classic Journeys director, Noel Walshe. Noel passed away on the 13th June. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

We are missing Noel terribly and only wish we had had the chance to say something meaningful. ‘Good bye’ or ‘Thank you for being a friend’ or ‘We love you, Noel.’

John Walton, our friend and School Expedition Consultant gave the following eulogy at Noel's funeral. it is a fitting tribute.

Noel Walshe

I first met Noel 20 years ago when I was looking for an adventure travel company to cater for my needs with a group of Sixth Formers. Having travelled the length and breadth of the country visiting prospective companies, I popped in to see Ann and Noel on the way to my parents in Lincoln. I didn’t hold out much hope – 33 Metro Avenue – a front room enterprise. How right, and how wrong, I was. Yes, it was a front room, but as soon as I walked in I felt a warmth, a compassion and a sincerity I had not experienced at any of my visits to other companies. I booked my trip and now Classic Journeys have organised twenty four expeditions for me. I made the right decision that day twenty years ago and I have no regrets.

Noel joined me on the first two and proved to be the perfect companion. He wasn’t excitable, even when things went wrong, and walking up hill he never appeared to break into a sweat or breathe heavily. I hated him! His easy manner earned him the respect and admiration from the Sixth Formers in my group. Despite only approaching his mid thirties he had gone prematurely grey and bore an uncanny resemblance to John Major. En route up the Khumbu we came across a group of Israeli trekkers. Stopping for a chat we told them not to be concerned about the security men in the woods on either side of the path; John Major was on his way up the trail. Taken in hook, line and sinker, the Israelis ambushed Noel and asked for his autograph. There must be a group of bewildered Israelis somewhere wondering why John Major used the pseudonym, Noel Walshe.
Noel had a wicked sense of humour within a group, particularly a group of lively Sixth Formers, and thought nothing of playing a trick on a client or two. I remember a toilet tent collapsing around its occupant, a fly sheet being reversed while the occupants were asleep. If you dish it out you also have to be prepared to take it. Noel could. At Debouche his tent was collapsed shortly after he went to bed. Most of us would have felt the urge to get up and restore our temporary home but not Noel. He slept through the night with his tent collapsed about his body.

Most importantly for me as an expedition leader was the fact that Noel was a rock, a man who was dependable and whom I could rely on to give support when it was needed but also to take responsibility, to offer leadership when that too was needed.

Noel was a supporter of Chesterfield. I originally came from Lincoln and invariably we found Chesterfield and Lincoln City in the same lowly division. I hadn’t been to a match for thirty years when Noel suggested I travel to watch Lincoln play at Chesterfield. It was an experience I shall never forget. Chesterfield won but it made me realise that football matches are far too long; the highlights, as shown on television, are long enough. It also revealed to me, and I hope I don’t offend anybody here, that League Three football has all the freneticism of Under 11 football but only half the skill! We went to the return match in Lincoln later in the season. Lincoln won the return leg, convincingly. Whilst we did not go to many matches, they were precious moments I shall treasure.

In 2001 I was fifty, a few days after the massacre of the Nepalese Royal family. Ann and Noel phoned me that Mary Nightingale, the presenter of ITV’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ had asked them to talk about safety issues with regard to tourism in Nepal. Ann and Noel told me that they felt they couldn’t because they had a financial interest in Nepal whereas I just loved the place. I instantly agreed. Doubts crept into my mind as to the authenticity of the request. At two o’clock one morning I sat bolt upright in bed and said, “This is a stitch up!” Angela, my wife, reassured me it couldn’t possibly be, Noel wouldn’t do a thing like that. Reassured I went back to sleep, in the knowledge that Noel wouldn’t do a thing like that. The Carlton film crew duly arrived at my school on the morning of my birthday to interview me. I wouldn’t be seeing Mary Nightingale; they would be patching her in later asking the questions. I was to imagine I was talking to a mate in the pub. The filming started. If it could go wrong it went wrong. There were so many choreographed interruptions and the interview took ages. I got more and more exasperated. That turned to embarrassment when they wanted to film me in situe, teaching. When I made a mistake on the board I feared eight million people would see I couldn’t teach maths. Filming complete, the crew retreated to the pub where they filmed the questions. A few days later at my party the truth was revealed. Everybody was included in the plot and it proved to be very funny. Without Noel and Ann it could never have happened. But then Noel wouldn’t involve himself in anything like that. Revenge would have been sweet but Noel’s fiftieth slipped by quietly.

In 1993, Classic Nepal, as it was known then, was given the responsibility of organising the 40th Anniversary celebrations of the first ascent of Everest, to be held in Nepal. All the survivors of 1953 were there and Noel played a significant role in the organisation both here in the UK and out in Nepal. Before they left the UK there was a pre-trek meeting in Derbyshire. There was Noel, with Ann, telling Everest veterans what they should be taking in their kitbags for a trek in Nepal. At the end of the weekend John Hunt placed an arm around Noel’s shoulder and said, “I’m glad you are coming and looking after us.”

Out in Nepal that is just what Noel did. John Hunt was getting on in years and could no longer cope with the altitude, so had to descend to the camp at Lukla. In the village of Phakding there is a particularly interesting bridge. I know, I’ve crossed it many times. It sways freely above a thirty foot drop into the Dudh Khosi with hand rails that sag down to calf level. As John Hunt crossed the bridge, Noel held on to his shirt tail determined not to lose his precious client. He didn’t. Having looked after John Hunt, Noel had to return to the rest of the group some miles up the Khumbu. It takes a while to catch up at altitude but who should be in Lukla with a helicopter? Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund gave Noel a lift up to Thyangboche. This experience was a genuine highlight in Noel’s career as a provider of dreams.

On their return to the UK, John Hunt, who had returned earlier, was at the airport to meet them and presented Noel with a copy of his autobiography. Inside he had written, “With affection and in gratitude for your great pains in making our celebrations in Kathmandu and in Khumbu such a memorable and happy event.” Praise indeed, and justly deserved. Classic Journeys, as it later became, has been a regular donor to the Himalayan Trust UK. Having travelled many times to Nepal himself it was a cause Noel could identify with and one which could never have enough financial support.

You may be forgiven for thinking that the life of an adventure travel company director is a life of adventurous travel. Far from it. Yes, there is an element of that but in recent years Noel had become more confined to the office, by choice as much as anything else, and also by a realisation that there was just too much to do. He was a perfectionist, with such attention to detail, but he did it quietly, without complaint, dealing with airlines, ground agents in a dozen countries, making sure that the customer always got what they wanted and more. He was doing what he did so well on Saturday 13th when he was cruelly taken from us.

I am sure that many of us have said before ‘what a wonderful way to go’. Maybe it is. For Noel it was quick. He wouldn’t have known much about it. But it makes it all the harder for us left behind wishing we had had the chance to say something meaningful. ‘Good bye’ or ‘Thank you for being a friend’ or ‘We love you, Noel.’ I hope it’s not too late to say all three.

Blindsight

Last night I watched Blindsight, a documentary programme I had recorded from Sunday which was shown on BBC4. Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, this documentary follows the gripping adventure of six blind Tibetan teenagers on a climbing expedition up the 6,970 metres (23,000 ft) Lhakpa Ri, on the north side of Everest.

Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons, the children are shunned by their parents, scorned by their villages and rejected by society. Rescued by Sabriye Tenberken, a blind educator and adventurer who established the first school for the blind in Lhasa, the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa and inspires Sabriye and her students Kyila, Sonam Bhumtso, Tashi, Gyenshen, Dachung and Tenzin to let him lead them higher than they have ever been before.

By the end of the programme I just wanted to reach out and give these kids a hug. Despite all the odds they had survived what life had thrown at them. Given an opportunity they were moving forward in life with huge determination.

The programme was of particular interest to all of us at Classic Journeys as earlier in the year, John Walton (our schools expedition consultant) had taken a group of visually impaired students from New College Worcester to Nepal. This group were accompanied by an equal number of sighted students from King’s School Worcester. The group trekked in the Annapurna region, reaching a high point of 3,193 metres (10,536 ft) on the top of Poon Hill. They then travelled to Chitwan National Park for a jungle safari and for most students the highlight of the trip – being transported by elephant through the jungle and long grass in search of greater one-horned rhinoceros and tiger!. Helping to bathe a mother and baby elephant in the river was the icing on the cake.

This was the second time John had taken a joint group from New College and King’s School on trek. The previous year the group had travelled to Morocco, trekking in the Jebel Sahro region and enjoying a camel trek.

It is incredibly uplifting to see how the challenge of adventure travel and the interaction between different cultures enables individuals to grow and develop. The seeds of inner belief are kindled with the confidence to reach out and achieve perhaps a little more in life than they thought they could before the adventure began.

Ang Rita Sherpa visits Classic Journeys

Ang Rita Sherpa and his wife Ang Jhangmu recently visited the Classic Journeys HQ. We first met Ang Rita in Nepal many years ago through our association with George and Mary Lowe and the Himalayan Trust, the charity created by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1960. Ang Rita has for many years been the chief administrative officer for the Himalayan Trust in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was a great pleasure to welcome Ang Rita along with his wife, Ang Jhangmu, Himalayan Trust trustee Mary Lowe, wife of 1953 Everest expedition member George Lowe and New Zealander Ed Cotter. Ed climbed with Sir Edmund Hillary in the Himalayas in 1951 and later pioneered adventure tourism in the 1950s in Fiordland, New Zealand. Earlier this year he trekked to Everest Base Camp, at the age of 81!

Classic Journeys has supported the Himalayan Trust for may years and we would certainly encourage anyone to find out more about the charity and if possible make a donation.

A Blog At Last!

So we finally have a Classic Journeys Blog - hooray. This has been something I have been meaning to do for some time but never seem to find the time to actually sit down and do it. Now I have my own space to upload images and keep you updated on what we are getting up to, what we are planning and who we are meeting here at Classic Journeys HQ. Blogging time will be dictated by the demands of a one year old labrador, the number of emails in my inbox (I never seem to empty this anymore), work commitments, my latest photographic project (currently very cute Coot chicks) and the usual home and garden chores.

In the meantime, click here to visit the Classic Journeys website for an update of our treks and tours.