Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and flattening plates of gateaux as he passed. No one knew what to do except
laugh. Fortunately, when halfway, Alex stumbled. He keeled over, fell beneath the
table and passed out. There was a gasp from the hundred or so onlookers. Bernard,
not one to miss the moment, got to his feet: 'And that concludes the treasurer's re-
port for 1974.'
It was not quite the end, however. We still had to find a way to pay our printer,
Werner Trimmel, who was not only excellent at his job, but also part of our climb-
ing scene and a superb skier. He was also known for occasionally violent outbursts
and as a hard puncher, perhaps the result of a childhood on the streets of Allied-
occupied Vienna. A week after the dinner, Alex arranged for us to meet Werner at
a Leeds wine bar to talk over the unpaid bill. He hoped that a bottle of whisky
would help smooth the situation, but it had the opposite effect. Things started off
chummy enough as the drink took effect.
'I've a great idea,' I said to Werner confidently. 'Let's produce a journal next year
and you can take all the income to pay for the last two journals.'
'But you will pay for the last one now,' he asked.
'Sorry Werner,' said Alex, 'we've got no money.'
The truth dawned on Werner's face. We owed him a substantial sum in the
middle of a recession that was threatening his business. Having decided he had
heard enough nonsense, he reached over the table, grabbed me by the throat and
swore he would kill me. In a flash, Alex pulled Werner's glasses off and flung them
across the room. In the ensuing mayhem of what was now literally 'blind rage',
Alex yanked me out of Werner's grasp and shouted: 'Run!' We didn't stop until we
were a mile away.
The bill was finally paid through a piece of creative accounting of Alex's inven-
tion. Centre Sport in Leeds was one of the country's best specialist climbing shops,
owned by a climbing friend, Dave Clark. It was where the club bought all its com-
munal equipment like tents on account each year. The bill was submitted to the
university and paid directly. Dave was a good friend of Werner; they went skiing
together each winter. When told the sorry tale of the Leeds journal, Dave agreed to
provide us with a false invoice to pass on to the student union. Dave then paid
additional annual grant from the university. I recall arriving at the salad bar one
day to discover the half-dozen tables usually occupied by the club were empty.
Realising the cheque for this new grant would have been banked that day I headed
off down the road to the pub for a lunchtime session.
In the winter months following the dinner, Alex's climbing reputation advanced
