I’ve made new friends and caught up with old ones at every stop on my book tour, and Topping & Company in Bath was no different.
I was taken by complete surprise when my cousin Briony and her family arrived. Her mother, my aunt Liz, has her own connection with mountaineering royalty – she was once au pair to the family of the legendary French alpinist Gaston Rébuffat.
This event also gave me the opportunity to meet Clare Homfray, god-daughter of George Mallory’s oldest child, the late Frances ‘Clare’ Mallory.
It’s incredibly moving for me each time I meet, in three dimensions, the friends and family of those who, until recently, had lived only on the page.