Pasteur Hugh William

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
Hugh WiIliam Pasteur 1899-1984
Hugh Pasteur inherited his love of mountains from his father Charles and grandfather Henri, and from the family's origins in Geneva, from where his grandfather moved to England in the 1860s. The writers of their obituaries in this journal used words which serve as well as any to describe the attitude to mountains which Hugh inherited. Alfred Wills wrote of Henri Pasteur, 'he was one of the best types of the true lovers of mountains, belonging to a class of which, as well as its great mountaineers and discoverers, the club may well be proud; of men whose souls are permeated by the beauty and grandeur and glory of the mountains and whose lives and characters are more or less moulded by their wholesome and invigorating influences', (AJ 24). W B Carslake wrote of Charles Pasteur, “he was indeed a mountain lover in the widest sense of that term ... for him mountains became old friends”, (AJ 60).
The first entries in Hugh's diaries are of col walks on family holidays from 1910-13. After the war he was in the Alps most years between 1920 and 1936. At first there were the regular family holidays, when he and his brother Mits were introduced to Alpine climbing by their father, usually climbing with guides. Hugh's fourth climb in his first season was a traverse of the Matterhorn, up the Hörnli and down the Italian ridge.
He acquired new climbing companions who joined these parties in the early '20s, notably Bill Carslake and Leslie Letts. In 1923-25, when he was working as an engineer at Winterthur, he was able to climb at week-ends in some of the lower ranges, sometimes with his life-long Swiss friend Robert Etienne. There were two excellent years in 1927 and 1928 when he climbed with Carslake and Letts without guide from Belalp, Zinal and Grindlewald. The best season must have been 1928 when in 12 days they climbed the Rosenhorn-Mittelhorn Wetterhorn, Mönch, Jungfrau, Eiger, Dreieckhorn, Weisse Nollen, Finsteraarhorn and Schreckhorn. This trio would also visit North Wales and the Lake District for rock-climbing weekends.
He became a member of the Club in 1924. His diaries are good on the record of routes and times, but without much comment apart from unusual incidents. Quite a number of these seem to concern either objects or people falling into crevasses; in 1911 it was Auntie Mary's butter dish on a walk from Breuil to Gressoney; in 1957 it was an English bishop near the Lötschenlücke.
He married in 1929, and his wife Grisell shared his love of mountains, accompanying him on the easier ascents in the early years, and on pass walks in later years. The family holidays continued in the '30s, the favoured areas, as in the '20s, being in the Valais, particularly Saas-Fee and Arolla. He only made two brief visits to Chamonix.
In 1948 he introduced his children to the Alps at Champex, taking them up some manageable peaks, with his father, then 78, also present, still walking up to the passes with measured rhythm and restraining the.youthful enthusiasm to rush the pace. Hugh's last real climb was the Wildspitze in 1954 with myself.
Then valleys and passes replaced peaks and glaciers, with favourite places for later walking holidays being Binntal and Fafleralp, usually with his brother Mark in the party. He lived long enough to see one of his grandsons, a fifth generation, show great promise as a climber.
His other interests were music, gardening and above all the family. Music was a pervasive influence and joy in his life, and he was a very competent pianist and accompanist. He inherited music, married into it, and passed it on. He was a successful and knowledgeable gardener, developing the garden of the family home at Fairseat in Kent, where he lived for just short of 50 years, and where he died peacefully. His favourites in the garden were rhododendrons and azaleas, and a pine imported from Arolla. There was a small corner for gentians and he was an expert with fruit. Almost his whole working life was spent with the old established firm of refrigeration engineers J and E Hall of Dartford. After the second war his successful work on the export side took him to many countries, from which came many life-long friendships.
He was never happier than when he was with a family party, whether of his immediate family, the wider family in England, which was very close-knit, or a visit from the Swiss branch, with which he maintained continuous links. Again the words of Alfred Wills of Henri Pasteur are remarkably fitting to describe how Hugh would receive family and friends at home: 'his manners were distinguished, with something of the courtly grace of an older time. There was a heartiness and sincerity about his welcome of a friend of which many must have felt the charm.'
David Pasteur
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 91, 1986, Seite 269-270


Geboren am:
1899
Gestorben am:
1984