Pyatt Edward Charles

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Biografie:
Edward Charles Pyatt 1916-1985
I first met Ted Pyatt when I went to work at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington in 1960. He was already a relatively old hand, having joined the Civil Service in 1947 after an 11 year period with the Telephone Manufacturing Company as an electronic engineer. We worked together in a newly formed Division of NPL, and I as a complete amateur so far as electronics are concerned profited considerably from his great experience in the development of a unique piece of apparatus which was to be the basis of my research work for some ten years. Later Ted moved on to assist another group, but it had not escaped his notice that I had an interest in climbing. I soon found myself gently persuaded to become the provider of area notes for North America for the Journal, on the basis of my slender experience of those regions. As a result of Ted's persuasiveness and good organizing ability, a variety of expertise and facilities available at NPL were on occasion discreetly diverted to the needs of the Journal!
Ted's love of mountains stemmed originally from a family holiday in North Wales in 1930, and was further inspired by a copy of the Abrahams' book Rock Climbing in North Wales found in the Islington public libraries. His rock climbing began on the Tunbridge Wells outcrops in 1936 and was followed by seasons in Skye in 1938 and '39, including a one day traverse of the Coolin Ridge. His Alpine experience was modest, consisting of two seasons in the Berner Oberland in 1946 and '47, but no doubt like many others his climbing activities were constrained by the war. He was involved in the 1960s in extensive explorations of West Country climbing, mainly on cliffs, in collaboration with K M Lawder.
He was elected to the Club in 1956, and his application shows an impressive list of sponsors, ie proposed by Bill Murray, seconded by Wilfrid Noyce and supported by Winthrop Young and Fred Pigott among others. However, prior to that he had already shown himself to be a keen club man. In 1938 he helped to found the Polaris Mountaineering Club in conjunction with Bernard Simmons. He became a member of the JMCS London Section in 1940 and was its
secretary during the War years and later its President. He was assistant secretary of the BMC in 1945-47 and was elected to the Climbers' Club in 1945.
A few years after joining the Club he started to make significant contributions to its affairs, becoming Honorary Librarian in 1963, a post he relinquished on taking over the editorship of the Journal from Alan Blackshaw in 1971. In recent times, editors of the Journal have tended to come and go with some rapidity, reflecting the heavy demands the job makes on one's time. Ted was thus unusual in undertaking the task for a period of 12 years, handing it on to John Fairley in 1982. He thereby became the second longest serving editor of the AJ, overtaken only by Yeld, whose 31 year period as editor is surely unlikely to be remotely approached in future. Ted always had everything well under control, with a carefully organized network of delegated responsibilities for different parts of the Journal, and in the years that I was involved as part of the system, we were usually in the happy position of having extra copy 'in the box' ready for the following year. It is some measure of his forethought in these matters that I am writing these valedictory lines with the considerable aid of a brief but detailed curriculum vitae which Ted had thoughtfully prepared for this purpose, apparently in 1984.
Ted's involvement with writing was of course much wider than his work for the Journal. His first guide was published in 1947, Sandstone Climbs in South-East England. This was soon followed by Climbers' Guide to Cornwall (1950) with A W Andrews, and British Crags and Climbers (1952) with Noyce. Then came other detailed guides and also Mountaineering in Britain with R W Clark (1957), and Where to Climb in the British Isles (1960). The latter was my personal introduction to Ted's work, being received as a gift soon after I went to NPL, and led to my first realization that my new colleague was an author of considerable experience. He also wrote extensively about walking, producing a series of books for David and Charles Ltd and an HMSO guide to the Cornish Coast Path. His final works on mountains were the Guinness Book of Mountains and Mountaineering Facts and Feats (1980) and The Passage of the Alps in 1984. Towards the end of his time at NPL, he wrote a fascinating history of Bushy
House, and also an extended history of NPL itself (The National Physical Laboratory - A History, 1982). Ted was also responsible for setting up a museum at NPL before he retired, which involved the bringing together, restoration and display of various historic pieces of apparatus used in high precision measurements of fundamental constants at NPL over the years.
After passing on the editorship of the Journal, Ted felt free to move out of London, and he and his wife Marguerite moved to Hungerford about three years ago, partly to be near good walking country on the Downs. Sadly, Ted was the entirely unexpected victim of a routine operation which went tragically wrong; this caused him many weeks of suffering before his strong constitution finally gave up the struggle against acute septicaemia. His death is a great loss to the Club which owes him much, and an incalculable one to his family and friends. Our sympathy goes to Marguerite and to his son and daughter, Christopher and Gillian.
Tom Connor

Christopher Russell writes:
I should like to add a short tribute to Ted Pyatt with whom I worked for many years, at first in the Alpine Club Library and later, with my brother Jeffrey, as a contributor to the Alpine Journal.
We soon came to know Ted quite well and were both impressed by his boundless, almost relentless energy. As Editor he was always approachable, helpful, and generous in his acknowledgements. We never ceased to wonder at the amount of detailed work he completed each year, assisted by his wife and family.
It is nice to think that a lasting reminder of Ted Pyatt will be his 12 volumes of the A lpine Journal, which will surely retain an important place in the Library he knew so well.

Geoff Templeman writes:
Like Tom Connor, I was another who was gently persuaded to assist in the production of the Journal, and soon found myself doing book reviews and then organizing obituaries. As the person who introduced me to the Club, I have a lot to thank Ted for and got to know him well. He gave great service to a number of clubs including, of course, this one, but was not essentially a 'clubbable' man - the idea of struggling into a dinner jacket to attend an annual dinner not being his idea of pleasure! His knowledge of mountains and mountaineering was immense. Whilst he researched the material for his many books carefully, much of it was in his head, and you only had to mention a particular climb for him to say, 'Oh yes, that was first climbed by . . .', particularly if it was one of the more obscure crags of Britain, or Europe.
In later years Ted took to walking the long distance paths of Britain, and I shall remember his anecdotes about his trips - like the night he spent in a phone box near Llanthony when caught in foul weather on the Black Mountains - usually related in his deep voice with chuckling laughter on the train home from the Club.
One thing Ted and I disagreed on was the length of obituary notices. He thought they should be very short, so I will stop here.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 91, 1986, Seite 287-289


Geboren am:
1916
Gestorben am:
1985