Where laced up leather boots so softly tread
Beneath spiral columns of spindrift snow
Time freezes in the ice where he lies dead

A gnarled old man with two teeth in his head
Prays to Chomolunga from down below
Where laced up leather boots so softly tread

One month before, Gray’s elegy they read
Whilst they waited for the storm winds to slow
Time freezes in the ice where he lies dead

Bold Irvine from seagull-swirled Birkenhead
Swapped Mersey salt air for high Rongbuk’s flow
Where laced up leather boots so softly tread

And facing the rock with open arms outspread
Falls into the final gold afterglow
Time freezes in the ice where he lies dead

No more cold nor black starred, merciless dread
No more crawling roped silhouettes to show
Where laced up leather boots so softly tread
Time freezes in the ice, where he lies dead

I find the tragic story of the 1924 Everest expedition compelling. The contrasting, but complementary, personalities of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine who made a final, fatal attempt on the summit against all the odds are fascinating. Both were from the (mainly flat) county of Cheshire where I live. Irvine was born and raised in the sea port of Birkenhead. With the recent, poignant discoveries of Mallory’s body and Irvine’s boot and remains of a foot, the mystery of whether they reached the summit decades before Hillary and Tenzing and with much more primitive equipment and clothing remains unsolved.