Reg Clarke, aged 70, an experienced mountaineer, became trapped with a Dutch friend Johannes Ruiter, 47. Both men perished.

They were on the Italian Alps and were found huddled together on Saturday morning (August 16).

The two men had arrived at the base of the Monte Rosa mountain Rosa range on Thursday.

This tribute is from close friends Neil and Laura Hall, of Cambridge Road, Horsham.

We were away when we learned of the death of our friends Reg Clarke and Joop Ruiter. This appalling news shocked us deeply.

Our thoughts are with Jean, Ian, Jim, Kate and all other members of the Clarke family, along with so many friends. Our thoughts are also with Astrid, Joop's wife, who survived a battle against cancer and now has to come to terms with this cruel blow of fate.

I met Reg over 15 years ago. At that time, aged around 55, he had trained to teach physics at secondary level and was working at the same school as my wife, Laura.

My first meeting with Reg and his wife Jean took place on the evening of the 1992 Sackville School Annual Concert. My wife teaches music at Sackville and I attend these concerts – sometimes with a degree of reluctance.

Reg was busy with his various teaching duties but, with utterly characteristic generosity of spirit, he happily gave up what free time he had to participate in the concert. I remember him being beside himself with enthusiasm on this particular occasion – and his enthusiasm even rubbed off on me.

After the concert we emptied several cans of beer and bottles of wine. Reg was as happy and excited as if he had just sung a solo at the Last Night of the Proms!

I met Reg on many subsequent occasions and, along with everyone else who met him, I couldn't help being impressed with his energy, enthusiasm and sheer joie de vivre. I very soon become aware that Reg was a man of many parts.

He was a fine amateur musician, a pianist and a singer. He was a skilled mechanic, capable of taking a clapped-out shell of a vintage car and restoring it to its pristine state. He was a traveller, a walker and, of course, a climber – an enthusiasm which, alas, cost him his life.

He was also a wide reader and in later years, along with Jean, had taken up the study of several European languages. There were, of course, many sides to him which I never even glimpsed. I knew nothing of Reg the scientist, and I cannot believe that his interest in science had waned.

I remember Reg as a man of many talents, but I remember him most as a friend, as someone whose sheer appetite for life was unmatched by anyone else of my personal acquaintance. Reg would take an equal delight in climbing a mountain, restoring a car, strumming a Chopin nocturne or watching children playing in his garden or splashing around in his swimming pool.

And there was nothing like a couple of drinks with Reg to lift the spirits! A pint or two of real ale or a glass or two of a decent red would call forth that mighty, rafter-ringing laughter. I simply cannot believe that I will never hear that laugh again.

Reg loved all types of music – from folk music to Mozart, from music-hall to Beethoven. But I got the impression that there was one piece of music which had a special significance for him and for which he had a special affection – Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony. R

eg sang in this work on a number of occasions and neither I nor my wife can ever listen to it without thinking of him. Walt Whitman's lines, at the end of the last movement, seem particularly appropriate to this great adventurer:

Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther farther farther sail!

Did you know Mr Clarke? You are welcome to add a tribute below.

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