CORRESPONDENCE

Pre Vert
La Combe
CH-1359 Rances
Switzerland Tel. (024) 459 1650

30th January 2000

Dear Mr. Kapadia,

The initiative that you took to spend a couple of weeks in Darjeeling[*] meeting the Sherpas who still reside there will result, I much hope, in a Survey that would be of great interest not only to early HC members but to all present readers of the HJ.

So far as I know HC records of the Sherpas, which were instituted by H. W. Tobin with the founding of the Club in 1928, were maintained as one of the chief occupations of Tobin’s successors as Hon Local Secretary in Darjeeling. When Tobin left in 1934, George Wood-Johnson took over, then J. W. Kydd in 1936-7. Between 193840 Mrs. H. P. V. Townend, as Secretary of what was then the Eastern section of the HC at Calcutta, did sterling work looking after the interests of the Sherpas and keeping their records up to date. In 1950, when the HC got going again properly, Ludwig Krenek as HLS Darjeeling in 1949-50 compiled a Sherpa Porters Register containing 175 names (including Ang Tsering b. 1910) which, for the first time, was published in the HJ (XVI 1950-1 pp. 121-133). From 1951-55, Jill Henderson as the Club’s local Secretary, ‘mothered’ the Sherpa community in Darjeeling, and fought tooth and nail to ensure that their interests were protected.

But by then a big change was on the way with the opening up of Nepal, the migration of Sherpas to the new centre for expeditions in Kathmandu, and the dissolution of the Club’s activities in Darjeeling as a recruiting agency for Sherpas. Of course a few Sherpas never left Darjeeling, such as Tenzing, Pasang Dawa, even Angtharkay who stayed until the end of the 1950s; and many others, encouraged by the establishment of the HMI. It would indeed be interesting for the HJ to publish a current review of the size of the Sherpa community who still reside in Darjeeling, providing a picture of their present activities; and whether any of the older men have passed on their profession to their descendants, as many well-known families of Alpine guides have done in Switzerland.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

T. H. Braham