Mackinnon Thomas D.

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Biografie:
geboren in Glasgow (Großbritannien)

Thomas D. Mackinnon (1914-1981)
Tom Mackinnon died at the end of September 1981, victim of a stroke, which 2 years earlier had caused partial paralysis. He is survived by his wife Rowena and his daughter Charlotte
Tom was born and brought up in Glasgow. On leaving Glasgow High School, he trained as a pharmacist and succeeded as a young man to his father's business, a chain of chemist's shops. He began climbing in his teens with his school's mountaineering club, then joined the JMCS in 1933 and the SMC in 1936. His most frequent climbing companions in the 1930s were John Brown and Bill Mackenzie. I first met Tom in 1935. I was then a beginner and privileged to climb with him only occasionally, for although my friends were his we climbed with different groups, and there was this gulf in experience. He led me up Agag's Groove on the Buachaille in 1936, a month after its 1st ascent. He had already begun to climb in Norway (1935 and 1936), and from then onwards went to the Alps every summer.
Tom was a big man (6 feet and 14 stone) and unusually strong. His climbing talents at this time exceeded his full realization of them, for he was diffident about his skills (unless in action) and respectful of a hard route's reputation. He led no new climbs but became a top class, all-round mountaineer. Outstanding in his character was an abounding good-nature. It positively overflowed to benefit all in his company, this too at every level of circumstance. For example, I never knew him lose his temper (something I can say of no other sorely-tried friend), not even during the weeks and months of a Himalayan expedition, when minor causes build up, and everyone gets tired or stretched. On the higher, emergency levels, he became totally self-forgetful. Once, when the river Falloch was in full autumn spate, we made a visit to admire the falls. I fell in while jumping a greasy rock gut and was swept down into a deep cauldron, undercut all round, where I looked like drowning under the fall. Tom dived in fully clothed (not pausing to remove his hat). Even to me, with a bias to rescue, it seemed a madness. Powerful swimmer though he was, the back-eddy from the waterfall spun him out like a twig and luckily cast him up at the low end. But the act was typical of the man.
Tom joined the AC in 1948. He had then had 4 or 5 alpine seasons. In 1950, he accompanied Douglas Scott, Tom Weir, and me in exploratory journeys through Garhwal and Almora, when he climbed several lesser peaks, notably Uja Tirche, 20,350 ft. In 1952, he went with Scott, Weir, and George Roger to the Rolwaling Khola of Nepal, where he climbed 3 mountains of 19-22,000 ft near the Tesi Lapcha pass. He had shown himself to be a fast acclimatizer, and proved that again on Kangchenjunga in 1955, when he twice went to Camp 5 at 25,300 ft. The sirdar on these last 2 expeditions had been Dawa Tenzing, for whom Tom had a very high regard. He brought Dawa to the SMC Easter Meet at Glenfinnan in 1965. Twice after that, when I was revisiting Sola Khombu, Tom gave me money to pass on to Dawa 'for the repair of his roof.
Tom was elected president of the SMC in 1958-60. In his latter years he became an enthusiastic yachtsman. His death has desolated his friends.
W. H. Murray
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 87, 1982, Seite 266-267


Geboren am:
1914
Gestorben am:
09.1981