Daphne at the helm on the 2010 CC Sail/Climb Meet
We are sad to announce that Daphne Pichard died peacefully in the Silvermere Care Home on Monday 25th January, Pamela and her two children were in touch with Daphne during that day. We offer our condolences to her family and friends.
Message from Tony Williams:
Daphne’s funeral has now been arranged for Wednesday 24th February at 10 am. On line access to the service has been arranged.
A virtual reception by Zoom is being set up for the same day from 17:30. Breakout rooms can be arranged for private chats if requested. There is likely to be a limit of 100 people for the reception. A guest list will be set up to avoid the risk of Zoombombing, which can occur if a meeting is advertised openly.
Please email me if you are interested in either viewing the ceremony or attending the virtual reception and I will put you in contact with the family. At this stage it does not matter if ultimately you are unable to attend. My email address is in the CC / LMC members’ directory.
Older members will remember Daphne for her role in collecting hut fees. Some of us remember her as part of the crew on one of the 6 yachts on the CC Sail/Climb Meet around the Ionian Islands in 2010.
The following inspirational but sad article about Daphne Pritchard was written by Trevor Willis back in 2018.
Daphne has been diagnosed with dementia and has now moved into a Care Home, the address is Silvermere Care Home, Redhill Road, Cobham. The care home is quite close to the Craggy Island climbing wall in Guildford and so whenever she can Daphne goes here to continue practicing her climbing.
Daphne Pritchard on Craggy Island Climbing Wall – Photo Silvermere Care Home
I’m so sad to hear this I’ve know Daphne which feels for ever. From my early days attending diners and Daphne sitting next to me, I us’t to joke she was stalking me, we laughted and had fun jesting with each other. I’ve not seen her for quite a few years maybe the last time was on the Ionian Trip but she always kept popping up in my mind , Sad loss to me and the club.
keith s
Sad news, such a kind and joyful person! We’ve missed her visits “out of the blue” and rescuing her gloves from the top of ice climbs … having abseilled leaving them behind!
Daphne will indeed be missed by many in the climbing community into whose lives she kept popping over the years. She was a regular at Westway weekday morning sessions even as dementia was catching up with her. Despite sometimes struggling to tie in she was still able to climb surprisingly well and with her well known determination. Our Westway sessions will not be the same again – once the wall reopens. She leaves me, personally with fantastic memories of great routes and trips in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Very sad. She supported my membership application, and was always a fun person to be out climbing with.
Sad to hear that Daphne developed dementia but also very surprised to read that she’d reached 86 years as I thought she was much nearer my own age, 12 years younger! Perhaps her diminutive stature helped conceal her age, though I expect her climbing and keeping fit also contributed. I have fond memories of her on CC meets based at the Count House in Cornwall. She was always so enthusiastic; one certainly knew she was there on the meet! I had a very enjoyable day climbing with her at Porthguarnon around 2008 when we arrived at the crag somewhat early for low tide but traversed in from the Cove nevertheless. Many of the easier bits of the traverse were underwater so we had to climb higher with more difficult moves. The boulder-hops were more like boulder-leaps but Daphne threw herself into the adventure fearlessly with much excitement and fun. We picked HS / VS pitches up each of the 3 tiers and I was very impressed by her neat controlled climbing style and her proficient ropework. It was a memorable day.
I remember Daphne with much fondness. Always an enthusiastic member of the Swanage and Count House meets in Cornwall she attended. I always assumed she was much younger than her true age. Rest in peace with the climbing Gods Daphne. x
Sad to hear this, I always liked Daphne, on the eccentric side at times but a proper character and quite the enthusiast.
Sorry to hear this sad news. She had a warm and friendly personality.
This is sad newws. The last time i saw Daphne was when she attended the dedication of the local climbing wall in Yeovil to the memory of Mike Pinney. She promised to get a climb in on one of her trips to vist her niece, I think it was, in Bristol, but somehow that never happened.
We met regularly on the AC/CC Alpine meets in the nineties where we got in some valley cragging together but never took on a big route. She did team up with Dick Sykes to traverse the Matterhorn via the Italian and Hornli Ridges the same day that Mike Pinney and I did it, following up on Mike’s cunning plan to avoid the crowds. Understandably they took a good deal longer but that was still a major route and she was nearly 60 at the time. Those meets were very much family occasions and she always had time for the kids.
Into the noughties, we met at the Dolomite meets where she and Jeremy Whitehead teamed up for some routes. Both camped in their little tents so in cold evenings we would find them on the doorstep of my campervan, looking for warmth and conversation. They had a shared gift for talking the hind leg off a donkey and on occasions I had to start getting ready for bed before they took the hint that it was time to go.
She had had some bad luck with accidents to her climbing partners although there was never any suggestion that she had been negligent. If I remember rightly, it took her a while to get over Hamish Nicol’s death at Lands End. She was very kind to my ex-wife who was suffering from Lupus, visiting her on Daphne’s visits to Manchester on BMC business.
It’s sad to think that dementia would have made her endless tales so much more difficult to follow but I can just imagine her slight form giving it all she had at the climbing wall.
Good memories to cherish Dave
I am really very sorry to learn that Daphne has died. Although I hadn’t seen her recently I will always remember her enthusiasm for climbing and her ever cheerful willingness to help and to loyally participate in all the various C.C. activities over very many years.
Jancis
Oh dear. This is such sad news. I hope I can still keep climbing when it gets to the stage of forgetting exactly how to tie in. We’ll all miss her teasing sense of humour. I was once struggling (again) to work out how to get round an overhang during a meet at Gardom’s when the voice of my belayer reached me: ‘Would sir like lunch sent up?’
Despite this, I was briefly married to Daphne. She partnered my son and me at an AC/CC meet at Ailfroide for an ascent of Montagne des Agneaux. As I belayed to bring up my son and Daphne, a passing Frenchman told me that my ‘family’ were on their way. The three of us also shared an adventure on a long rock-climb at that meet: Palavar les Flots. With two more pitches to complete, a wall of black was approaching up the valley fast. Daphne insisted that we finish the climb which resulted in the 7 raps being undertaken through increasingly strong waterfalls. There’s a great photo of 3 drowned rats back at the campsite in The Joy of Climbing. When we met at subsequent dinners Daphne’s wicked smile was all that was needed to remind us of our brief, but perfectly happy, if ultimately soggy marriage. How many other partners can claim as much?
I got to know Daphne when she joined a group of mainly elderly climbers, who climbed at the Westway (closed at present) twice week. She travelled there from her home in Walton on Thames by train or drove there. She was an enthusiastic and talented climber, However, she loved to talk and it was difficult art times to get her to start climbing. With the onset of dementia she needed help with tying on and did not do any belaying. However, she continued to climb with us until she entered a Care Home. The others in the group have fond memories of her.
Daphne was for many years one of the regular ‘instructors’ on family meets at the Count House. I climbed with her regularly in Cornwall and later on Alpine meets. On one occasion I remember climbing Mont Blanc and somehow we got separated in the crowds and the mist. I decided to carry on and there she was waiting for me on the summit. Don’t miss out on a summit just because you somehow mislay your partner.
Daphne has featured in my climbing life since the 1980s, popping up at various CC meets in Pembrokeshire, Cornwall, Swanage and Kent/Sussex sandstone. On one occasion I thought I had “encouraged” her to lead a particular single pitch route but for ever after was accused of having bullied her into it. Daphne was a skilled climber, a kind and helpful person, and a very effective talker.