Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Things became really complicated when I phoned the BMC to see what help they
could give. Dennis Gray phoned me back the next day to say it was the BMC's job
to organise the trip and select the members since the discussion of a joint expedi-
tion had come during an official exchange. The bureaucracy that Mike Thompson
had predicted would emanate from the seventeenth floor of Dennis Gray Tower
suddenly rang true. I seemed to be left high and dry, without a team and without
the likelihood of official support, despite the ongoing agreement and conversation
I was having with Zawada and he in turn was having with the PZA.
Having left
Mountain
magazine, I had returned to the seventeenth-century farm-
house above the Duddon estuary in the Lake District where I had worked abort-
ively on my thesis. My uncle and aunt rented the place but while they visited occa-
sionally from London, I was on my own most of the time, working as project man-
ager for the county council. I had a little money saved. To lose a chance to go to the
Hindu Kush was unacceptable, so I continued to argue with Dennis. I didn't care
who organised it, as long as I was part of the team but I needed Zawada to write to
the BMC.
Communications between Poland and a Lakeland farmhouse were complicated
in those days. Calls to Poland had to be booked at least a day in advance. The local
operator, invariably a helpful woman with a BBC voice, would put you through to
an international operator, invariably a man enunciating like he was on the World
Service saying: 'This is London calling.'
'Hello Andrez. What news? Have we got support from the PZA for the trip? Did
you write to Dennis Gray?'
'Yes, yes, the PZA will support an expedition for ten climbers: five from your
country, five from Poland. But I need all the details of your team. Have you re-
ceived all the forms to take to the Polish Embassy?'
I had, but I needed to find a team and get the BMC to agree. I procrastinated.
'Give me a month. It will all be arranged.'
Zawada was still keen to make it happen and wanted me as the contact. But in
the meantime, the BMC advertised for expeditions to bid for the opportunity to go.
To me, this seemed a totally unacceptable bureaucratic intrusion, something more
expected in Poland than the UK. Nearly forty years on, I can understand the BMC's
approach. I was known for Alpine routes but had never been to altitude. The Leeds
club, from which I intended to draw my team, had a terrible reputation as organ-
isers. This would be the first joint expedition with an Eastern European country to
try an objective outside of the Soviet bloc. The BMC did not want such a poten-
tially high-profile enterprise to fail.
