Fletcher Frank

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Biografie:
Sir Frank Fletcher (1870-1954)
Frank Fletcher was a mountaineer of the old school, essentially an amateur ; climbing was a joy and a recreation to him in his youth and a happy recollection in his later years. He never made a record time or discovered a new route ; he never climbed seriously without guides. But he set himself to master the technique of rock, snow and ice and made himself proficient. He looked to his guides for knowledge of the weather and the route, not for practical assistance: his climbs were to be his own.
His attitude to climbing was in many respects like his attitude to life.
He has written his own story in After Many Days (1937), a racy and humorous narrative interspersed with profound reflections on the schoolmaster's life, which is self-revealing. A friend of over sixty years and often a companion on the rope may be forgiven for seeing climbs and life together.
Fletcher's family had been for generations colliery-owners in Lancashire, pioneers in providing for the welfare of their men; sturdy, intelligent and enterprising ; strong adherents of the Church of England and men of Christian life. Frank, the eldest son of Ralph Fletcher of Atherton and nephew of Philip, a member of the Club, (whose memoir Frank wrote in A.J. 39· 300 ), was born in 1870 and brought up in a goodly company of brothers, sisters and cousins. At twelve he entered Rossall School and in 1888 was elected to a classical scholarship at Balliol. Jowett was still Master and Fletcher's tutors were the brilliant Classic, W. R. Hardie, afterwards Professor at Edinburgh, and Lewis Nettleship, the philosopher, who lost his life on Mont Blanc in 1892. Fletcher won almost all the possible classical honours in the University, firsts in Mods. and Greats, and the Ireland, Craven and Derby Scholarships. But he was not only a scholar, and played hockey for the University in his last year. Brought up to an individualist game on the sands of Rossall combination on sand is not easy at a critical point he rushed the ball down the left wing and scored a goal ; he had seen what was wanted and did it quickly. I could parallel this with several small incidents on the mountains, for instance with an occasion when, as he liked to remind me, he ' saved my life on Tryfan,' by grasping my coat-collar from above and hauling me out of a gully, where I was stuck on a steep wall.
Walking and scrambling with undergraduate friends, Fletcher was already on the hills, but it was not till 1891 that he came to know the Alps. From a start with his brothers at Pontresina he came on to meet me at Saas Fee. We were taken in hand by Cary Gilson, then a Master at Harrow, who initiated Leo Amery, a far greater climber than either of us. Gilson put us through our paces on local rocks, and with Christopher Cookson and Pierre Maitre of Arolla, took us up the Weissmies. In the next two summers Frank was with his uncle Philip, first in the Zermatt district and at Arolla, and then in the Oberland, traversing the Jungfrau and ascending the Bietschhorn, whose disintegrating rocks he would abuse as he would a boy's bad exercise. In 1893 he came to join me in the Val de Bagnes and we had good days on the Grand Combin and lesser peaks. In 1896 he revisited Arolla, repeated some of his former climbs and added the Dent des Bouquetins. He was elected to the Club that December and was always proud of his membership. In the summer of 1897 he was with his uncle and cousin and myself at Arolla and in the Zermatt valley, but weather prevented us from getting up anything more adventurous than the Pigne and the Mischabel Dom. This was the extent of his Alpine career, the record of a young man who loved the mountains and rejoiced in the effort of climbing, but was wholly non-competitive. But he owed one more great debt to the hills, for it was in the Jura that he became engaged to Dorothy, the daughter of William Pope of Crediton. They were married in 1902 (I was privileged to be his best man). She became not only the perfect hostess and the ideal schoolmaster's wife with a real understanding of the boys, but in countless ways his assistant and adviser. This was never clearer than when, in the years of his illness, which he met with characteristic courage and resolution, she sustained and supported him. It was she who planned the move from the lovely, but isolated, house in Devonshire to the neighbourhood of Godalming, where many friends could visit him.
Fletcher's public record as an assistant master at Rugby, as Master of Marlborough (the youngest and at that time the only lay Head of a great School) has been done full justice to in the Press, and his Knighthood in 1937 was universally applauded as a fitting recognition of his work. But in the success of his career the brilliance of his classical scholarship has to some extent been obscured. He was without doubt the most outstanding classical undergraduate of his time ; he had a great memory, a sensitiveness to style and a fine critical sense. His love of the Classics never faded and pupils of every generation he always insisted on teaching his sixth form himself testify to the inspiration of his lessons on St. Paul and Browning, no less than on Greek and Latin books. He was never a pedant or a mere technical scholar, the Classics were always literature to him. His methods can be seen in the two small volumes published after his retirement, notes on lEschylus' Agamemnon and on the sixth Æneid. His own enthusiasm was just catching.
Fletcher was of medium height, well-poised and agile. His face was a little rugged Epstein exaggerated this in the bust and at first even forbidding, but his smile and almost eruptive laugh soon dispelled alarm and showed his humour and understanding ; the flash of his eye was often accompanied by a peculiar jerk of the hand. In his manner there was a certain bluntness no beating about the bush a marked appearance of self-confidence and an occasional want of tact; neither at Marlborough nor at Charterhouse was he popular at once. But all who got to know him and they were the majority came to recognize the deep, if reserved affection, which had its roots in a truly Christian love. Frank did not carry his religion on his sleeve, but its sincerity and vitality were seen in his chapel sermons and in the hymn, ' Strong Son of God,' which was written for the Charter house Book and has found its place in other collections. There was no relaxation in his hold on himself or in the energy which he put into his work and his recreation ; he knew, as a mountaineer should, that care is needed almost more on the descent than on the climb. He was indeed in his life as on the hills a great man, if only because of his ability to gauge the situation, to see his way and to pursue it.
Cyril Bailey
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 60. Nr. 290, 1955, Seite 151-153


Geboren am:
1870
Gestorben am:
1954