Cheney Michael J.

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Biografie:
geboren in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire
gestorben in Kathmandu (Nepal)

zählte zu den besten Kennern Nepals
Quelle: Archiv Proksch (Österr. Alpenklub)

Michael John Cheney 1928-1988
One of Nepal's best-known expatriate Britons and a leader in its trekking and mountaineering scene, Michael John Cheney, known as Mike to all his acquaintances, died in his sleep at his home in Kathmandu in the early hours of the morning of 20 February 1988, apparently from heart failure. He had been ill for the previous week or two after having had what doctors suspected was a stroke. He had also broken his left arm close to the shoulder at about the same time while on a trip in one of the more remote areas of western Nepal.
Mike was only 59 years old, but had had several episodes of serious illness during the past two decades which had taken a severe toll on his strength. He actually should have died years before, but his fierce will to carry on the work he found all-absorbing kept him going against great odds. But finally his strength gave out. He was buried in the hillside cemetery maintained by the British Embassy in Kathmandu, with about 200 Nepalese and expatriate mourners at the graveside.
Although he kept his ties to his family back in England and considered Beckford Grange, Tewkesbury one of his homes, it was his wish to live and die in Nepal, where he spent the last 22 years of his life. He never married – women seemed to terrify him - but he was generous with his kindness to Nepalese children as well as to adults in distress.
After obtaining his School Certificate, Mike served in the British army from 1946 to 1957 in the Royal Armoured Corps and the loth Gurkha Rifles. During these years he saw active service in Korea, Kenya and Malaya and rose to the rank of captain. He then became a tea-estate manager in the Darjeeling area of north-eastern India. In 1965 he moved to Nepal and spent two years in tea there before ill-health forced him to stop working for two years.
When he was able to resume work, Mike returned to Nepal and took a job in the fledgling trekking industry with the world's first trekking agency, Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmy Roberts's Mountain Travel, which had begun sending mountain-lovers on treks in the northern regions of Nepal just four years previously. He remained in trekking till the last day of his life, although he left Mountain Travel in 1976 and was an executive of three successive other agencies. His last post was as General Manager of Rover Treks & Expeditions (P) Ltd.
Mike was a champion of the poorly-paid porters who carry heavy loads under difficult conditions for expeditions and trekking groups, and he actively promoted the employment as trek leaders and mountain climbers of men who belong to tribes other than the Sherpa clan. He was certainly no desk-bound trekking organizer. He spent many weeks each year out in the hills scouting new trekking routes in central and eastern Nepal for clients who wanted to travel away from the paths which have become greatly overcrowded in the Everest and Annapurna areas. And he sometimes went with the mountaineering expeditions whose logistics he helped to arrange, most notably as a member of Chris Bonington's 1975 British South-west Face Everest Expedition, which he served as Base Camp manager. He was very proud of having been an actual member of that historically successful team.
Mike was an active member of the Trekking Agents Assocation of Nepal and of the Himalayan Rescue Association in Kathmandu, the Local Hon Secretary of the Bombay-based Himalayan Club, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Alpine Club. He followed the mountaineering scene in Nepal closely and was correspondent for several alpine journals and mountaineering magazines in Europe and the United States.
Elizabeth Hawley
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 94, 1989-90, Seite 310-311


Geboren am:
1928
Gestorben am:
20.02.1988
Cheney_J._Michael_-_BST_1988-7.pdf