Capel Curig grave Alfred Bradford and Edward Latham

c_curig_bradford_and_lathamAlfred Samuel James Bradford and Edward Godfrey Leeke Latham (d. 1937)

capel_curig_edward_lathamAlfred and Edward were medical students at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, writes Hazel Pierce.  On Sunday 14 February 1937, despite bad weather they left Cobden’s Hotel in Capel Curig to climb the Idwal Slabs, Ogwen Valley, telling the hotel proprietor they’d be back for lunch. The photo of Edward (right) is shown here courtesy of the Derby Telegraph.

Experienced climber Connie Alexander (warden of Idwal Youth Hostel) saw them at the top of the slabs before they disappeared in the mist, going towards a climb called Javelin. Across the valley, someone using binoculars saw them fall nearly 500ft to their deaths. As they’d been roped together, when one slipped he was bound to take the other down. Alfred was 26, Edward 24.

Connie testified that she‘d decided not to climb that day because the rocks would have been treacherous, even to those wearing hob nailed boots (as the men were). The climb would have been all right on a dry day, she stated.

Their families decided they would be buried in Capel Curig, near the mountains they loved. On the day of the funeral, local people offered support. In Bethesda, quarrymen acted as pall bearers, carrying the coffins from the mortuary to the hearses. They then escorted the cortege “through a silent main street, where business was suspended and all blinds drawn”. At Ogwen, “workmen on the roadside stood silently to attention”.

The coroner remarked on this kindness: “The inhabitants of the district, the local police, and those staying at the Youth Hostel are remarkably kind when things of this sort happen … They even risk their lives to try and rescue unfortunate climbers ... You could not have come to a kinder neighbourhood, and we all sympathise with you keenly in your loss.”

Edward’s uncle, the Rev WL Latham, read the committal service at the gravesides and the friends were buried, side by side, in their climbing clothes.

With thanks to Dr Hazel Pierce of The History House

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