Ian and I met in a chalet in Verbier in 1978. We had much in common- a love of the mountains and with it a passion for “sloping” snow!
Much of our “together time” has been spent on the mountain in Wengen, Avoriaz, Flaine and latterly many weeks with the McGarry family in Chatel. Our children have grown up together and we have all been able to share the McGarry pride in their accomplished ski racer children,Tamsen and Kirsty.
Ian and I have now been the closest of friends for well over forty years. We have the sort of friendship in which you don’t have to say too much! We both know…. what the other is thinking!
In the early days Ian would come and stay with me in Highgate in North London. He would bring recorded material from RTE to tidy up with the techy people at the BBC. We got on so well even without a mountain!
I stayed with Ian, and his lovely mother, in Stillorgan when I was taking my final anaesthesia fellowship exams in December 1979. I passed the exam! I have always felt that I owe my success to having had a McGarry “oasis of calm” to revise all the topics which, as if by magic, all came up in exam. We even found a mountain to ski…the dry slope at Kilternan!
I have a passion for Ireland, her culture, her music and her fabulous scenery. I have traveled widely since 1971. This love of Ireland is founded on the bedrock of my enduring friendship with Ian, Jane, Tamsen and Kirsty McGarry.
Whenever Jackie and I are/were over we would always end up in Dalkey. Whenever possible the “team” would come to us on the way to Chatel.
I have thousands of memories of the good times spent together. Not the least of these come from the mountain!
The memories of having skied with one best technical skiers of his generation fills me with pride.
What an amazing multi-talented man he is….
As an aside doesn’t he just love sweet desserts!
JR 23.12.2020
- Jeremy Rickford