2 July 2015 Jim Gardner - The Early Years

Last Thursday was the first meeting of the new Rotary Year, however, as President Mary Fraser was on holiday, President Elect Nick Rawlings chaired the meeting.

We had 6 welcome visitors: Bob Reid came along to collect the Fourways Trophy, which he won at last week’s Am-Am Golf Competition for the best Stableford Score of 40 points. Bob is shown below accepting the trophy from Jim Gardner with President Elect Nick Rawlings and Billy Phillips of Burgess and Gibson who sponsored the team.

We also welcomed 3 of the Dunblane First Responders team, Maureen Simpson, Liz Kirkhope and John Fraser who came along to collect a cheque which will enable them to install a defibrillator unit at the Westlands Hotel. president Elect Nick with Dunblane First Responders Maureen Simpson, Liz Kirkhope and John Fraser below.
 

And finally, we had 2 far-travelled visitors from Canada: Rotarian Barbara Fisk and her sister Brenda. Barbara had taken part in last year’s Rotary Curling tour to Scotland and presented a banner from her club – The Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium near Ontario.

Speaker Jim Gardner regaled the meeting with tales of his younger days. Firstly as a mountaineer – he did lots of climbing in the Scottish mountains and in Chamonix – then in 1963 he applied for a position with British Antarctic Surveys. He was interviewed by Sir Vivian Fuchs, who had completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958, and in October 1963 headed south via the Falkland Islands to start 2 year posting. Part of his job was to drive a dog sled team, not helped by his aversion to dogs; however he managed some sort of control. He undertook various trips in pretty extreme conditions, down to minus 49°C at one point, and even managed a bit of climbing, scaling Mount Andrew Jackson, the highest point in the Antarctic Peninsula at over 10,000 feet. After completing his posting he and a fellow climber spent several weeks camping and climbing in South America, including the historic Machu Picchu site in Peru.
Following his return to the UK, Jim went to Jordanhill to train as a teacher – he was not sure which job was more demanding!
Iain Smith gave the vote of thanks for an excellent talk which was well endorsed by all present