My Father, Sandy: A Son's Memoir

Description

'When did I last see my father? At tea-time, is the real answer - watching him eat bread and butter with quince jam. It became my final vision of him. A blurred, oblique vignette from the last days of his life, preserved for the rest of mine.' Nicholas Wollaston was four years old when his father was shot dead in 1934 by one of his Cambridge students. Alexander Wollaston, doctor, botanist, explorer, had led extraordinarily tough expeditions to New Guinea, the Sahara, and the Himalayas, in his search for undiscovered flora and fauna. In 1924, in tweeds and leather shoes, he accompanied Mallory on his first trip to Everest. My Father Sandy is a son's tribute - a personal voyage of discovery - part memoir, part travel history, but, above all, a profoundly moving love story.

'When did I last see my father? At tea-time, is the real answer - watching him eat bread and butter with quince jam. It became my final vision of him. A blurred, oblique vignette from the last days of his life, preserved for the rest of mine.'