In 1970 I was 18 and saw an advert in one of the UK’s “hippy papers” it may have been International Times. This was for a bus going overland to India. Anyway I turned up at the address in London on Feb 5th 1970 to find that bus had not got enough replies so Emile? Was going to drive in an old Rover car. So there was me, Emile and his girlfriend and Earl Denman who was much older than the rest of us and had a lot of luggage! Boxes of it. We set off and picked up an Indian in Munich who was going home, then on across wintry Europe to Istanbul. Earl was very reserved as I remember, but over the journey would disappear to newspaper offices I believe to give interviews. He must have talked about Everest because I think I got the impression he was going back there. I was young and everything was exciting and fascinating. The roads pretty much were dirt roads after Istanbul, the car broke down constantly, the natives were not too friendly in the middle of Turkey, but Iran was easier at that time, then to my amazements the road through Afghanistan was actually paved ( a gift from either the Americans or Russians? ). Down through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan and the car finally conked out at the Indian Border, 3 weeks after we set out from London. I don’t remember what happened to Earl, but the rest of us took a buffalo cart from the border to the first town in India and we caught a train on to Delhi. A journey that changed my life. Years later I came across “Alone to Everest” which I still have. I regret not getting to know Earl better, I was just so young, and there was so much filling my life up on that trip. I do wonder if he did make another attempt on Everest, and what happened to him that summer of 1970.