A Himalayan birch for Ronnie

“I just enjoy being among the mountains, that’s good enough, I don’t need to get to the top…” Ronnie Faux, born Burnley 8 November 1935, died Carlisle 16 July 2024. 

Before this turbulent 2024 ends, there’s still just time to add one more tree story. We have planted a Himalayan birch in memory of our dear friend Ronnie Faux. It seems a good match for an adventurer who enjoyed clinging to rocky ridges in snowy places.

You will find the beautiful Himalayan birch (Betula utilis albosinensis) in many parks and gardens. Its gleaming white trunk with shreds of red-brown or pink tinted paper bark is an eye catcher. In the wild it grows across the Himalayas and climbs as far as the Everest tree-line, roughly 14,800 ft, helping to protect the fragile ecosystem of the Himalaya, although with climate change research shows the trees are reaching higher altitudes.

You would have found Ronnie well above the tree-line in 1976, when he covered the story of a British Army assault on the dangerous south face of Mount Everest (the Nepali name for the world’s highest peak is more poetic, Sagarmatha, meaning “Goddess of the Sky”.) At the age of 41 Ronnie, already known for his climbing skills, was Scottish correspondent for The Times when he was invited to join the team.

He leapt at the chance, (more fun, he said, than Scottish politics and North Sea oil). He spent two weeks training for the mountain with the army in the Lake District but was content to settle at 20,000 ft while two SAS men (Brummie Stokes and Bronco Lane) headed for the summit – another 9,000 feet (and some inches) further into the clouds.   In Ronnie’s own words, as The Times obituary recorded in July this year, “I had no ambition to go any higher”. Instead, Ronnie’s handwritten reports captured the dramatic rescue of Brummie and Bronco on their way back from the summit. And much more.

On the trail of extreme leisure

There’s very much more to Ronnie’s adventures. From two more ascents of Everest – and revealing interviews with extraordinary mountaineers compelled to reach the top – Ronnie went on to become the world’s first “extreme leisure correspondent” for The Times. Learning to fly, doing a shift with the Red Arrows, deep sea diving, caving, testing microlights, motor bikes, fast cars, Ronnie was there. Loving it. He had no interest in competitive sport.  It never was about getting to the top. As he put it in a 2019 episode of the South China Morning Post podcast The Adventure Trail, he wanted to write about the things that people enjoy doing. Not sports with rules.

Listening to that podcast this afternoon I was surprised that it did not make me sad. I enjoyed hearing his voice and many familiar stories. He loved telling stories, most of all when it rendered his listeners helpless with laughter. Lots of them were told, and retold, here in our home.  It’s lovely to think that Ronnie and Frances, his wife, have been a part of the Pond Cottage adventure right from its impulsive beginning 30 years ago.

Our friendship goes back a long way. (Ray had known Ronnie since his own time on The Times in the early 70s).  The extreme leisure correspondent also enjoyed quieter moments and gentler pursuits on regular Faux family visits. Building bonfires as we cleared the ground round the cottage, learning to use the tractor and ride-on mower, chopping logs, stoking the fire, opening a bottle, filling a glass.

And now we have a tree to celebrate the friendship. We can’t offer steep cliffs or rocky ridges –  we are just a hundred feet or so above sea level – but the hardy young Himalayan birch should settle in well.  With Frances, their two daughters Sarah and Catherine, and close friend Celia, we agreed on Betula utilis albosinensis ‘Pink Champagne’,  a subspecies with pale pink peeling bark.  We planted the tree on 9 November, the day after what would have been Ronnie’s 89^th birthday.  In spring we will look for catkins, as the birch matures the paper bark will shred. With luck it will catch the sunlight as it does on Everest.

Featured image, looking towards Mount Everest across Sagarmatha National Park By © Vyacheslav Argenberg CC by 4.0

Further reading: Ronnie Faux, adventurer and microlight pilot RIP, Flyer: The Adventure Trail, Ronnie Faux the original adventure sports journalist, South China Morning Post. A life remembered, Ronnie Faux The Times Ronnie Faux, OWPG Substack. The Himalayan tree range is shifting and so are its ecosystems Science.org

This tree story is part of Every Tree Tells a Story at Pond Cottage