Following the devastating earthquakes that hit Nepal there has been a flurry of activity around Adventure Guide and the Himalayan Trust UK. To begin with the news coming out of Nepal was very distressing and you really didn’t know where to start, but soon ideas began to galvanise. In those early days we were given the impression that the military and the commercial airlines would help in any way they could to get relief materials out to Nepal. A plea came for tents, shelters and sleeping bags for the survivors who had lost their homes or for those too afraid to return to them. An appeal went out to the pupils and parents of King’s School, to friends and fellow travellers. Everybody was being very generous, giving away their used tents and sleeping bags or going out to buy new just so that they could donate them to the cause. Soon we had too much to handle and not enough space to store it all in. Fortunately, we heard of an organisation called LED (Light Education Development) had gathered a lot of stuff and had flights arranged. Using a van loaned to us by Greenline, we filled it with kit from here in Worcester and added more when I called in at Ann Brooks’ house in Sutton in Ashfield. There we packed and sorted everything and transported it to Ripon in North Yorkshire where it was being gathered prior to being shipped out to Nepal. A total of six and a half tonnes went with this shipment.

With Andrew Lewis at the Shelsley Hill Climb

Meanwhile, I was invited, through Chris Perks, to shake buckets at the Shelsley Hill Climb meeting on the Sunday, 8 days after the earthquake. I had never been to the hill climb before and it proved to be a very interesting and exciting experience, as well as raising £850 the the Himalayan Trust UK earthquake appeal. It was good to see Andrew Lewis, a boy I taught as an eleven year old, driving a racing car at the event. I even got the chance to see him crash out at his first attempt. Thankfully, neither he nor the car were damaged.

And still stuff kept coming in! Very soon my garage was full of tents, sleeping bags and blankets. With the prospect of many more to come, I had to find an alternative place to store them. To the rescue came StocknLock in Worcester who gave me free storage space for a month.

Half a tonne of tents

While all this was going on I was working Monday to Friday in Wales running the Old Chapel Camps for St Alban’s, meaning I was unable to do anything towards getting the kit out to Nepal. Ann had the contacts and it was arranged that Turkish Airlines would take the tents etc. on the first available flight. But first we had to get everything weighed, packed, stacked on pallets, fastened down and properly labelled. It was going to be impossible to do this at StocknLock, there simply wasn’t enough room. We had to find more space. We transferred everything from storage to a barn on Andy and Max Cullen’s farm, managing to source some pallets at the same time.

All the sleeping bags and blankets packed and ready to go.

Now we had space to organise what we had and pack it appropriately. We had 76 tents weighing a tonne, 260 sleeping bags weighing half a tonne and half a tonne of blankets. It took us a day of back breaking work to pack everything as it should be ready for the haulage company to collect and deliver to Heathrow. During the week the lorry took them to Heathrow, where they waited for a few days for space on a flight. They eventually arrived in Nepal and have since been collected and transported to the Solu Khumbu, an area which suffered most during the second quake, and which urgently needed relief materials.

It was not an easy process to get all the kit out to Nepal and the generosity of the international transport companies did not materialise. It cost a lot to get the items out but I am very grateful to the kind donor who paid for the transport costs. Without him, it would still be sitting in a barn in Worcestershire.

Throughout the period following the earthquake there have been many fundraising activities organised by friends who have, with me, had experience of the wonders of Nepal. They have done a fantastic job and raised a lot of money for the Himalayan Trust UK. It must not end now that Nepal is out of the media spotlight. It is going to take many years to put this wonderful country back on its feet and it is going to take a great deal of money. We need people to be actively fundraising for many months ahead. The Himalayan Trust UK has set a target of US$1,000,000 to rebuild schools, clinics and restore communities. So far we have raised over half but that was the easy half. The next half is going to be much harder and take much longer to achieve. We are determined to achieve it and put all of it into “Building Back Better”. It is not too late to donate. Visit www.himalayantrust.co.uk/donate and be as generous as you can. Thank you