Kay John Menzies

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Biografie:
John Menzies Kay 1920-1995
Professor John Kay, nuclear engineer and mountaineer, died in Bristol on 14 November 1995 aged 75. He was born on 4 September 1920. John was a traditional product of the Mechanical Engineering School at Cambridge in the 1940s. While he always regarded himself as an engineer in the broader sense, his name will be particularly associated with the major constructional developments in the nuclear energy field which marked the postwar years. He was a keen mountaineer and was elected to the Alpine Club in 1954, being proposed by another distinguished Cambridge engineer, A M Binnie.
John was educated at Sherborne and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and graduated in 1941. He served during the war in the Royal Navy, returning to Cambridge to take up a Demonstratorship in the Department of Engineering in 1948. His zest for climbing dated from this time, when he joined the Cambridge University Mountaineering Club. An associate of Sir Christopher Hinton in the Atomic Energy Authority, Kay became Chief Technical Engineer, and Director of Atomic Energy Production at Risley in 1952, where his outstanding technical ability and qualities of drive and confidence were vital in the major decisions which the nuclear programme demanded at this crucial time. He returned to the academic world in 1956 when he was appointed the first Professor of Nuclear Power at Imperial College, London. In 1961 he moved back to industry, first as Director of Engineering Development with tube investments and then as a directorwith the British Steel Corporation from 1968 to 1976. His involvement in nuclear matters continued throughout this period: as a member of the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (1960-1976), the Radioactive Waste Study Group (1974-1981) of which he was Chairman, and the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (1980-1083). His early involvement with undergraduate teaching bore fruit in two publications on Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer, the first of which (1957) remains a standard textbook for engineering students.
John spent his vacations in the hills, rock climbing in Wales and the Lakes with the Climbers' Club, interspersed by winter mountaineering in Scotland and, from 1947 onwards, in the French Alps, the Oberland and started rock climbing, inspired by the outdoor pursuits teacher at Belper High School, Hillary Collins, who later married Peter Boardman. Naturally athletic and very determined, Alison became a competent climber and was soon comfortably leading E3. She left school at 18 and rather than go to university she set up a mountaineering equipment company with the man she later married, Jim Ballard. Convinced of her climbing talent from the start, he adopted a supporting role, encouraging her to fulfil her potential.
In the mid-eighties it was still very unusual for British women to push themselves hard on Alpine climbs and in 1984-85 Alison made first British female ascents of several ice and mixed routes, including the North Face of the Matterhorn. Other Alpine successes followed and then, in 1986, came an invitation to go to the Himalaya with leading American climbers Tom Frost, Jeff Lowe and Marc Twight. The expedition made several ascents in Sola Khumbu, most notably a difficult new route on the NW face of Kantega.
Himalayan success threw Alison into the limelight and opened the door to eventual professional success. Bur first there were other things on her agenda. For a while Himalayan ambitions were postponed, while she concentrated on motherhood, but she still managed to fit in some impressive Alpine climbs, including, in 1988, the first British female ascent of the Eigerwand, when 5'h months pregnant. Later that year Tom was born, followed by Katie two years later. Then, in 1993, when the children were a little older, she embarked on a remarkable series of high profile ascents, starting with solo ascents of all the six classic Alpine North Faces in a single summer. Those climbs were recorded in her book A Hard Day's Summer, but what most impressed the climbing world was the postscript to that summer: perhaps conscious that The Shroud had been a bit of a cop-out for her Grandes Jorasses solo, she returned to the face in the autumn to make a brilliant one-day ascent of the much harder Croz Spur Direct. With only one day's good weather to play with, she flew in to the start of the climb by helicopter, with attendant photographer, and was lifted off the summit seven hours later, just as clouds rolled in. An astute manipulator of the media, she was playing the French at their own game.
The following year, in autumn 1994, she finally tackled the mountain that had been an ambition for many years - Everest. Climbing without oxygen, she reached about 8500m on the South Col route, before retreating, anxious to save numb fingers and toes. Six months later her patience was rewarded when, in warmer conditions, she climbed the North and East-North-East Ridges to the summit, unsupported, without oxygen and as alone as it is possible to be on Everest these days.
Alison's Everest ascent proved beyond doubt her competence, determination and remarkable adaptability to altitude. Little wonder that, at 33, at the height of her powers, she wanted to capitalise on that ability, and complete the Himalayan Trilogy of Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga. Exactly three months after reaching the summit of Everest, at 6pm on 13 August 1995, she stood on top of 1

Geboren am:
04.09.1920
Gestorben am:
14.11.1995