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The climb [Charles George Malcolm Slesser] rated as his finest came in 1960 on an expedition to the Staunings Alps of Greenland, led by John Hunt and including 20 youngsters who had won their Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award (Hunt was founding director of the scheme). Partnering the ebullient Yorkshireman Ian McNaught-Davis, he traversed the Hjrnespids (9,449ft) in an extraordinary 28-hour effort. Affirming Slesser's skill on rock, \"Mac\" referred to him as climbing with \"almost effeminate grace\" on the mile-long ridge to the summit. And for all Slesser's reputed chippiness about the English, the pair got on marvellously. The animosity was mutual. While bathing in a lake at Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, [Robin Smith] pushed Slesser's head under the water and held it there until Slesser feared he was about to drown. Afterwards Smith \"just grinned\". Later Slesser was reading in his tent when the door flapped open, Smith's penis appeared and he urinated in - a kind of forerunner to Lyndon Johnson's quip about J. Edgar Hoover (\"Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in\"). The most renamed peak in the region, Peak Communism, formerly Peak Stalin and now, since Tajik independence, Ismail Samani, was climbed at the unforgiving pace of a Russian \"sports plan\" - 10 days to get up and down a mountain 30 miles away and 16,000ft above base camp. The Russians had been taken aback at the Brits' less-than- disciplined approach to mountaineering - the drinking, smoking, slugabed camp life - but eventually it was two of the worst offenders, Joe Brown and McNaught-Davis, who reached the top with four Russians. Slesser and his fellow Scot Graeme Nicol, who had both been plagued by food poisoning, came close to giving up, then found the prospect too humiliating and struggled on, arriving only 40 minutes behind the others, in time for a burst of restored camaraderie and flag waving. Malcolm Slesser seemed perpetually busy. He worked in the oil, synthetic fibres and nuclear industries before becoming Professor of Energy Studies at Strathclyde University, and in 1976-78 was Head of Systems Analysis at Euratom in Italy (European Atomic Energy Community). He twice stood for election as SNP candidate for the Westminster parliament and once for the European parliament.

The Budget (pg. 18-19). last stages of the Transport Bill (pg. 19-20). the Sunderland by-election (pg. 20-21). report of the Coal Board (pg. 21-22). preservation of the countryside (pg. 22). Sir Lincoln Evans and the Steel Board (pg. 22-23). prospects of Korean armistice (pg. 23). Egyptian deadlock (pg. 23-24). the Prime Minister on the Russian enigma (pg. 24-25). the Bermuda proposal (pg. 25). Berlin riots (pg. 25-26). intransigence of President Rhee (pg. 26-27). Kenya (pg. 27-28). the Coronation (pg. 28-30). the conquest of Everest (pg. 30). the Naval Review (pg. 30-31). Coronation retrospect (pg. 31).