There’s something interesting that happens when you sit down to write a story you think you already know.
You remember the headline moments - the big names, the photographs, the feeling of it all. But as you start to piece it together properly, the details begin to melt away like ice in your drink. Small things you’d forgotten resurface. Other parts turn out not quite as you remembered them.
Writing this piece about Kilroy’s and cooking for some big characters in the Everest generation became a bit of a journey in itself - part research, part reconstruction, and part rediscovery.
It took me back to a time when Kathmandu felt like the centre of a very particular world - one that I had the privilege to stand inside, even if only for a while.
A good reminder that memory is a storyteller… but not always a precise one.
Especially when drink is involved like the cocktail sampling casually happening in the photo below with record-holding mountaineers Alan Hinkes and Babu Chirri Sherpa. (A lifetime ago when drink was definitely involved.)
If you’re curious, here’s the full story: Cooking for the Everest generation
