Poole John

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Biografie:
John Poole 1899-1987
John Poole was 87 when he died last year. One of four brothers who were all interested in climbing, he was proposed for the Alpine Club by M G Bradley in 1931 with the most impressive list of supporters ever seen - eight in all, including Haskett Smith, Claude Wilson, Edwin Herbert, Geoffrey Bartrum and S B Donkin.
His whole life was active, until illness prevented first climbing and then mountain walking. He recounted much of his activity in his article 'Senior Member' in the CC Journal for 1979/80, part of which was reproduced in Milburn's Helyg.
John was a meticulous man. I knew him first as a meticulous town clerk when we were both of that persuasion. He was a meticulous climber, as I learnt when I joined him for the first time on Tryfan, a mountain on which he seemed to know intimately every hold on every route. Of course, he had the occasion to know Welsh rock intimately, spending so much of his time there from 1918 onwards, and later alternating long summer holidays there with equally active holidays in the Alps. No wonder that he retired from being town clerk of Uxbridge to Anglesey, within sight of his beloved mountains, at the earliest possible moment. The advantage of Anglesey, and of retirement, was that he could see what the weather was like on the hills and choose when to climb.
When he started climbing, having acquired nailed boots, a 60-foot Beale's rope, with that famous red strand in the middle, and a copy of Abraham's Rock Climbing in North Wales, he set about climbing all the routes in the book, staying with brother Harry for weekends at Ogwen. Apart from his brothers, his early climbing companions included I A Richards, Dorothy Pilley, Will McNaught, M G Bradley, W J Williams and his son Gwyn, Herbert Carr and Herbert's father! With the last two he opened his alpine book when he climbed Mont Blanc, and then had a long alpine record.
He had five seasons there prior to joining the Club - Chamonix, Fionnay, Bel Alp and Stein - climbing mainly guideless with his wife and others, including traverses of the Grepon and Grands Charmoz. In 1935 he wrote in AJ47, 263, how, when ascending the Matterhorn in 1931, he had photographed the Schmids on the first ascent of the N Face (a print is in AJ44, opposite P70).
But his real love was Wales, to which he returned constantly and in which he lived for the last 28 years: a 'retirement' which many of us would envy, except for the last few years of illness which John bore with fortitude, however much he disliked his disabilities. In Wales he became an active member and, for a period, President of the Mountain Club of North Wales.
His wife, Irene, survives him. Under his inevitable influence she became an active climber and, via the Ladies Alpine Club, a fellow member with him of the Alpine Club.
John's influence will live on, through the many friends to whom he introduced the mountains.
Harry Sales
Douglas Milner writes:
When I went to the Dolomites in 1947, under Allied Military Permit, I climbed the Adang Kamin from the Gardena Hut,where a special book was kept for that climb. During the war years the only signatories were Graf von X or Oberst Y, and a very large one: “Luis Trenker”, the well-known Austrian film star. The last English signature before the war was that of John Poole, whose name I knew, though I had not then met him.
Three years later we were both members of a party of 7: 4 ACs, 2 LACs and A N Other. Only two still are around, Mrs Poole and myself.
We climbed the Torre Inglese (for the sake of the name), traversed the Zwölferkofel, Einserkofel, and the Kleine Zinne (by the Innerkofler route). A most enjoyable holiday.
Although I was in the CC from 1955, I never met John in North Wales.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 93, 1988-89, Seite 315-316


Geboren am:
1899
Gestorben am:
1987