Sandra Noel
Daughter of the photographer of the 1922 Everest expedition
SANDRA NOEL, who has died aged 74, was a great champion of her father Captain John Noel, the official photographer on the 1922 British expedition to Everest and its ill-fated successor in 1924.
Her book, Everest Pioneer: the Photographs of John Noel (2003), with an introduction by Brian Blessed, included many previously unpublished images from his adventures as well as anecdotes that he had related to her.
John Noel first visited the Himalaya region in 1913 disguised as an Indian tea planter while on leave from his Indian regiment. He later resigned his commission to join the 1922 expedition.
According to Sandra Noel, the last letter written by George Mallory, who died on the 1924 expedition with Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, was to her father telling him of their efforts to reach the summit. His final images of the two men, taken on a Newman-sinclair 35mm camera, depict their doomed ascent along the northern precipice.
After Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit of Everest in 1953, her father found himself in demand to talk about the inter-war expeditions. Gradually she picked up the mantle and, using his evocative images, would recall his tales of derring-do. “He talked about the hardship, but I don’t think it seemed like hardship to them at the time,” she said. “They thought it was a huge adventure.”
John Noel lived until the age of 99, dying in March 1989. While clearing out his possessions Sandra Noel, who inherited the rights to his photographic materials, came across old film footage from the expedition shot by her father. She passed it to the British Film Institute where, in 2003, it was added to his 1924 documentary, The Epic of Everest, which was subsequently rereleased with a new score by Simon Fisher Turner.
Although Mallory’s body was discovered in May 1999, Irvine’s has never been found. Sandra Noel always hoped that a small camera Irvine was known to carry would come to light – and that it might contain proof that he and Mallory were the first to reach the summit of Everest. She, like her father, “held a mystical belief … a hope perhaps” that they had.
Sandra Ruth Catherine Noel was born in Oxford on April 15 1943, 19 years after her father’s return from his final Everest expedition. His first wife had died young and he had met Mary (née Sullivan), Sandra’s Irish mother, in Glasgow while lecturing about his travels. After the war the family moved to Kent where her father, who had forfeited his Army pension by resigning, restored old buildings.
An only child, she was educated at Ashford School, where her father would visit to give talks about his travels. As an old girl she remained involved with the Ashford School Association for the rest of her life.
Having caught the travel bug from her father, she soon went off around Italy, Germany and Switzerland, learning their languages and teaching English. By the mid-1970s she was working as a tour manager, specialising in India and China and often travelling with parties organised by Cox & Kings.
She even acquired a pilot’s licence in the hope of flying visitors to game reserves in Africa, though in the end that project came to naught. She particularly enjoyed taking passengers to Lapland on Concorde for the Christmas festivities.
From 1996 to 2002 she ran a guesthouse in Kent and was a Blue Badge guide, escorting tourists around sites such as Dover, Canterbury and Battle.
After inheriting her father’s materials Sandra Noel’s interest in promoting his work grew. At Christmas 2006 she visited the Himalayas, where she met a descendant of an English tea planter who had known her father and was able to locate the studio where John Noel had developed his Everest films.
Sandra Noel is survived by her partner of 24 years, Lakhan Samuels.
Sandra Noel, born April 15 1943, died February 24 2018