Page 9 - 2020 AMA Winter

PHILIP HORNIBLOW
1928–2020
Meyron Bridges
With the passing of Philip Horniblow, Doctor, Climber, Spy, and all round Bon Oeuf on 13th August this year, the AMA has lost another of its oldest and most colourful members. Philip visited the Himalayas no less than fifteen times, and took part in AMA expeditions between 1959 and 1978, but his climbing career extended from climbing in Wadi Rum back in 1953, to Turkey, Ethiopia, the Alps, and elsewhere, and he celebrated his 70th birthday revisiting the scene of the tragedy on Kun Yang Chish (1962) in 1998. He returned to Everest at the age of 80 in 2008 to act as Drop Zone doctor for a Sky Diving expedition!
Philip was born in Eastbourne and after leaving school he joined 21 SAS before “getting a proper job”. As an initial training project, he took himself off to Dublin where he mingled discreetly with the IRA to gather information. While he then went to train as a doctor at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, he retained his association with covert operations through most of his working life, much of which he spent in the Middle East.
There he took on a series of very demanding jobs, just as those countries were transitioning from impoverished
tribes of nomadic Arabs to becoming mega wealthy oil states, but with little idea about how to structure or administer modern state organisations.
In 1959 he became the Chief Medical Officer for Kuwait, aged just 31, and over the next twenty years he went on to be the major player in building, more or less from scratch, the national medical services for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and later Abu Dhabi. He worked closely with the most senior members of the governments of these countries, but to Sheik Zeid, ruler of Abu Dhabi, he was always “Horrenblor”. His last job was in the Oman, from where he returned to Somerset in 1979, to become the senior Radiologist at Yeovil Hospital.
During his time in the Middle East, Philip became involved in a series of covert operations, some with dubious author- isation, which ranged from annoying the Communist inspired Egyptian forces who were stirring up trouble in the Yemen in the ‘60’s, to gathering information from sources across the Middle East, especially during the Dhofar War in Oman.
Philip was a close friend of Tony Streather, who In 1959 invited him to join the first AMA sponsored Himalayan expedition, to the Karakoram, which climbed a number of peaks, including a first ascent of Malubiting East. This was followed three years later by the Kun Yang Chish expedition on which the leader, Jimmy Mills, and his team mate Dick Jones were killed when a ridge collapsed under them, and they fell about 2,000m onto the Pumarikish glacier. For the 1976 Everest Expedition, Tony again called on Philip to be one of two doctors in the party. Although he asserted that he only went on expeditions to get away from medicine, he performed a surgical operation on one of our less fortunate Gurkha soldiers in Camp 3 at 7000m, which must surely be a record. Philip was a stalwart member of that party, to whom all turned for his wise council. In 1978 he went to Trisul with Henry Day, and in 1986 he was
again on Everest, this time on the north side as part of Brummie Stokes’ NE ridge expedition.
Philip was essentially a people person, and his ability to relate to anyone and everyone endeared him to all who knew him. For all the gruff, “you’ll live!” facade, he was also an extremely caring and conscien- tious doctor. During his 2008 exploit, he admitted to having suffered a mild stroke one night, which he “cured” with whiskey and water, but still had enough get up and go to diagnose a suspected burst appendix at 09.30 next morning, nurse the young Nepalese patient throughout a wild helicopter ride back to Kathmandu, briefing the hospital by radio en route, hand his patient over on the tarmac, and still check that a successful operation had been performed by 19.00 that evening, whereupon he went out to dinner. And yet he never learned to tie safely onto a rope with a knot that had any hope of holding under load! A truly inspiring and wonderful man, and a sad loss.
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 9