Norman (Plum) Worrall 1919-2006 (KMC: 0-62)

Norman Worrall (Plum to us all) died on 23rd June 2006, just after his 87th Birthday. He was a very special person, the likes of whom we will never see again. He was invalided out of the Army after a very traumatic experience at Dunkirk, where he spent his 21st birthday on the beach. This meant he was then available to be a founder member of our Club.

I was lucky enough to meet Plum and Robbie in 1946 - I was camping behind Windgather when they appeared and pitched their tent next to mine. I was invited to join them for a brew made from some very dubious looking water - that was the start of my friendship with them.

When Robbie was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was discharged from Christies with only 10 days to live, Plum adapted his old van and took her to the North of Norway, feeding her Carrot and Cabbage juice, and brown sugar - she lived another 10 years.

They settled in Aviemore where Plum worked at Glenmore Lodge - his expertise and patience must have been invaluable.

Some time after Robbie's death, Plum turned up at my house in Slaidburn and stayed for several days talking about old times, and telling me about the new lady in his life, Nan, whom he had met in an M/c launderette. Again, he showed his ability to share his love of the mountains, and with his encouragement, Nan soon learnt to Ski and walk in the mountains.

The Oldies amongst us in the KMC have our own memories, and Len told me some of his - on one trip to the Berwyns on Len's old lorry, it broke down at Lostock Gralam the Sunday night. The party numbered 15, but between them they couldn't raise the fare to M/c. Plum came up with an idea - they waited until next morning, and brought Workmen's tickets at a vastly reduced sum - which he knew were available to parties of 8 or more workmen. The Ticket collector at Central Station was amazed by this motley looking bunch of so-called workmen in nailed boots.

Plum is survived by Nan (88).

Pat Holt.

Some Plum Stories

We're going back 60 years for these...

Plum (because he was a plumber in off-piste life) Worrall was a big man with feet to match - size 12s. When you couldn't get decent boots in England he went to a boot- maker's shop in Austria for a pair, exhausting the proprietor and his stock in the search for a fit. Eventually, the exasperated man took Plum outside and pointed up at the symbolic trade sign, a gigantic boot three feet long. "That's what you need", he said, "but we've only got one". Incredibly, Plum managed to get a pair of Scottish Dancing pumps made so he could indulge in another of his passions. He was surprisingly light on his feet...

During the war, when primus stoves were unavailable, Plum would take the blowlamp from his toolkit out at weekends and would brew up, holding the Dixie of water in one hand, the blowlamp in the other, while carrying on a conversation at the same time. "Where are we going tomorrow?" asked one of his acolytes. "Over there" said Plum, describing an arc with the blowlamp, and burning an arc-shaped hole in the tent.

He was an original thinker and it's mainly due to him that the KMC is a mixed club (he wanted his wife Robbie to be part of it) and from the outset has accepted and encouraged beginners, or Graduating Members, as they were then called. Both of these provisions were unusual, if not unique, in mountaineering at that time. He and Robbie threw open the front room of their house in South Grove, C-on-M on Friday nights (not Thursdays, people had to work on Saturday mornings then) to all members and potential members. Robbie provided a steady supply of tea and toast as Plum elaborated on plans for the weekend. For the inspiration of the visitors, Plum had painted a vista of the Alps right across one wall, with a foreground of a Peak District dry-stone wall. Never doing anything by halves, he had gone into painting in a big way, studying at night classes. He went through what he called his knife and fork period, applying paint with a palette knife and putting the texture in with a fork. He was so impressed with Edmond Hillary's achievement on Everest that when the explorer came to lecture at the Free Trade Hall, Plum went backstage and presented him with a large painting of the Everest massif, whether he wanted it or not. His skill increased as he persevered, and painting and drawing the Scottish landscape gave him life-long satisfaction. He was drawing when Neville Macmillan visited him in the nursing home where he ended his days.

He took up photography. Just after the war you could get boxes of large-size ex- government printing paper and, not wanting to cut it down, all his prints were 20"x16" from the word go, and spread all over the house to dry.

He was made the representative for Graduating Members and I think it is fair to say that nobody has put as much effort into the job of encouraging newcomers to walk, climb and ski. I was one of them. When he moved to Aviemore and became a qualified ski instructor, he was picked to give Prince Charles his initial instruction. I'd give a lot to have been a fly on the slope during that confrontation.

Back at home and at work, during the war, a client asked him to repair some minor bomb damage to his roof and gave Plum the key while he went to work. Plum was in the loft, inspecting the damage when, he said," Nobody told me he had an indoor aerial". Plum tripped over it and measured his length, breaking through the bedroom ceiling. He dashed home, gathered a bucket of plaster and a bucket of whitewash and returned to the job on the tram along Upper Brook Street. He was on the upper deck, and dreaming of plans for the weekend as usual, when he realised he was passing his stop. Waking from his reverie, he grabbed both buckets and rushed down the aisle, banging both of them against the seats and strewing the contents all down the upper deck. He abandoned the lot and fled. Did the client ever get his roof mended? Plum kept that to himself...

Lack of space is against me and I haven't mentioned his snuffly dog, Rover, who used to share his sleeping bag , or his reedy voice singing "Strawberry Roan" at KMC gatherings, or his climbing, walking and skiing adventures, and travels in his battered van, Wandervogel, but I do recall an unforgettable character who had an enormous influence on the ideals of the club we have today.

Derek Seddon.

Plum Worrall

I first had the privilege of meeting Norman (Plum) Worrall as an instructor at Glenmore Lodge in March 1962 when I attended a snow and ice climbing course. Conditions were not favourable as there was all this dreadful deep powder snow covering the ice and creating high avalanche risks on anything steep. Eventually we decided to have a go at skiing instead. This one day of instruction on the lawn at the back of the Lodge (now re- contoured) was to be my introduction to a life-time of enjoyment through skiing, to the detriment of winter mountaineering, although I had many Alpine holidays to follow. Plum had by then become one of the most highly respected ski instructors in Scotland. Indeed he was the first British Skier to qualify as an instructor through the Austrian system and was the first to be employed by Karl Fuchs at his Austrian Ski School in Carr Bridge. He was a founder member of the British Association of Professional Ski Instructors (which later became BASI). Even in those days, when skis were scarcely ever less the 200cm in length, Plum was advocating short skis, at least for learning. In later years, he instructed mainly for the SYHA.

Plum spoke very highly of his Club, the Karabiner Mountaineering Club, which he had been instrumental in founding. It was unique at that time in many ways, not least by being a mixed Club and his first wife, Robbie, was also a central part of it. His confidence in the way the Club was run and controlled was such that he said he would climb anywhere in the World with any Full Member, without having previously met them. Little did I know at that time that I would eventually be privileged to become one of those Members. I was then living in Middlesbrough and just becoming a regular mountaineer with the Cleveland Climbing Club. I briefly met Robbie at that time and Plum had spoken of the way he had cured her of cancer by a radical change of diet, excluding all body-building foods. Sadly, her remission did not last much longer after that.

When I moved to Manchester in 1963 to undertake research at the Manchester College of Science and Technology (later to become UMIST and now merged within the University of Manchester), I was given an introduction to Charlie Park by a mutual friend from the Cleveland Club. (A colleague at MCoST was one of many who lived in run-down houses rented out cheaply to students by Plum as a little side business). Charlie went to Canada very soon after that, but I did start going out with the KMC whenever I could and was just beginning to feel I was getting to know a few people when I moved back to Liverpool, my home-town, on what I thought would be a short-term job. I therefore kept up my KMC Membership, rather than trying to get to know yet another group of local mountaineers. It was still possible in those days to get on meets mostly using public transport. There were some very strong all-round mountaineers in the Club at that time and I was conscious of the privilege I had been given of climbing with them on occasions. As a more modest mountaineer, I was also conscious of the fact that I would find it very difficult to become a Full Member, such were the high standards expected of all.

As Plum had become permanently based in Scotland, I do not think I met him again until I attended a Winter Survival Course at Glenmore Lodge in 1969. For a wide variety of reasons, this course moved from one disaster to the next. Not the least of these was the serious avalanche in Coire Cas which engulfed a party, including Plum, who were practicing ice axe breaking etc. on the steep head wall. Whilst all were dug out alive, there were some serious injuries. Plum's speciality on these courses was instruction in building igloos. I never put this experience to the test until I was in Australia and discovered that it does not work with slushy wet snow (fortunately we had a tent with us).

In these early days at the Lodge, few people had cars to go into Aviemore, so entertainment was on a DIY basis. Plum was in his element leading sketches and highland dancing at the weekly Ceilidh. The Pantomime at the KMC Annual Dinner lived on for many years and I am sure this tradition must have been partly of Plum's founding.

Whilst we only occasionally saw Plum at KMC functions in later years, his attachment to the Club remained throughout his life. He was sensitive to the fact that Nan was not a part of the Club in the way that Robbie had been and so he could not expect her to feel at ease at KMC events. Nevertheless those who regularly visited Scotland got to know her. At one time she worked as a cleaner at the Cairngorm Shieling and I caused some consternation amongst the Merseyside Ski Club by asking the ladies to pass on my regards when they went to the toilet.

The last time I saw Plum was when he was being interviewed by Scottish TV, marking the decommissioning of the old Cairngorm Chair lift. He was of course part of the history of Scottish skiing. I recall seeing Plum riding the Chair on numerous occasions with his poor little dog running up hill underneath. I did try to go and see him last year but he did not appear to be in when he called and I had heard that, by then, Nan was in a nursing home.

Although there must be many Club Members who never met Plum, I hope that from the various anecdotes that are being published in the Newsletter they will realise the debt that the whole Club owes to him. Whilst he was outwardly as hard as nails and somewhat eccentric, he was safety conscious, a great improviser and had a deep compassion, with a desire to help others enjoy life. We shall not see the likes of him again.

Alan (L) Jones

Plum Worrall - Founder Member

I first met Plum, long before I ever heard of the KMC, on New Years Day 1961 at the Austrian Ski School in Carr Bridge, where he was an instructor. In fact, Plum gave me my first ski lesson. It was memorable because of the weather. There was a high pressure system sitting over the Cairngorms, blue sky, sunshine, not a breath of wind, and over a foot of snow in the village, it looked wonderful. But the daytime temperature did not rise above -20°C; overnight the temperature had dropped to -25°C. None of the buses, for taking skiers to the ski slopes, would start. So Plum took the complete novices to the Carr Bridge Golf Course, and I had my first lesson on the golf course! It was so cold, and my clothing so inadequate, that any movement other than violent shivering was almost totally impossible. We had a flask of coffee between us to try to keep alive, I remember. After about two hours, when even Plum seemed to notice that it was cold, we all took our skis off and went back to the hotel to try to warm up. That wasn't easy because during the night there had been a burst, and there was a 3" thick layer of ice down one of the interior walls. Plum then set about getting the water system operational again. You had to be tough to ski in Scotland in those days!!

Plum was the first British national to gain a ski instructor qualification at the Austrian Ski School in St. Anton, about 1958, before there were any British ski instructor qualifications. He continued to instruct at various centres around Aviemore, latterly at Glenmore Youth Hostel, and also in the Alps, until the age of 70. But he continued to freelance after that. Even at the end of his career, he had the ability to transmit his enthusiasm for skiing to young beginners, who thoroughly enjoyed his ski classes on Cairngorm even in atrocious weather.

Since 1960 I have met Plum many times, on Cairngorm, and in Aviemore, and heard many stories from him, and more about him. He was always totally engrossed in the matter of the moment, and equally oblivious to anything else. Once, in a friend's house, during an intense conversation, he was totally unaware of a horrible smell of burning and smoke rising around him, as the pipe he had just put in his pocket at the start of the conversation had set fire to his jacket, and was trying to set fire to the chair he was sitting in. I also well remember a chance encounter in Aviemore when Plum launched into a long story about his latest skiing exploit, totally oblivious to the fact that we were both standing in the middle of the main road, and that he was holding a white porcelain WC pan under one arm.

More recently

In November 2004 Plum's wife Nan went into a geriatric hospital, and her mental health rapidly deteriorated. A year later Plum also went into the hospital; whether to be with Nan or whether he was having difficulty managing on his own is not clear. Once in the hospital, it seems he didn't go out much. But on the 2nd of June this year, ten days after his 87th birthday, a friend took him out by car to his favourite Glen Feshie, and took the photograph below. He looked in pretty good health. About ten days later there was an assessment meeting in the hospital involving medical staff, his social worker, and others, and they tried to persuade him that he should give up his council house, accept that he and Nan both needed long term care, and that he should give power of attorney to someone to act for him. To someone as independently minded as Plum, that was completely unacceptable. He became very angry, refused to co-operate, then refused to eat, deteriorated rapidly, and died of pneumonia on the 23rd of June. Perhaps that is the way he preferred it, rather than accept loss of control over his own life. (Within six weeks of Plum's death, Nan also died, though whether she ever understood that Plum had died is not clear.)

On Saturday July 8th the Aberdeen "Press and Journal" devoted 12 column-inches to a report on Plum's death and his funeral, under the headline:

"Death of instructor who taught Prince Charles to ski"

Neville McMillan