The Gable Memorial was unveiled on 8 June 1924. Geoffrey Winthrop Young, a distinguished mountaineer, poet and educator who had himself lost a leg whilst working with the Friends Ambulance Unit during the War, spoke in tribute.
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"Upon this mountain summit we are met today to dedicate this space of hills to freedom.
Upon this rock are set the names of men - our brothers, and our comrades upon these cliffs who held, with us, that there is no
freedom of the soil where the spirit of man is in bondage; and who surrendered their part in the fellowship of hill and wind and sunshine, that the freedom of this land, the freedom of our spirit, should endure.

This bronze stands high upon the crowning glory of our free land, as a sign between us and them; our covenant that those to whom in the time to come we, too, shall be but as these names, or as less than these names, still hold their freedom of this splendour of height, still breathe its fearless health, the inspiration of its faultless pleasure; free still, amid these untrammelled forces, to perfect their own vision of what is beautiful, interpret for themselves their own discovery of what seems true.

By this ceremony we consecrate a twofold remembrance; in token that these men gave their mortality of manhood for a redemption of earthly freedom, this rock stands, a witness, perishable also in the onset of time, that this realm of mountain earth is, in their honour, free. In token that their sacrifice bears witness still, beyond death, to the imperishable ideal of spiritual liberty, we commit today, not in bronze, but in unalterable faith, our thought of their triumph in the spirit to these spaces of power and light!

By this symbol we affirm a twofold trust: that which hills only can give their children, the disciplining of strength in freedom, the freeing of the spirit through generous service, these free hills shall live again, and for all time. The memory of all that these children of the hills have given - service, and inspiration, fulfilled, and perpetual - this free heart of our hills shall guard."

Geoffrey Winthrop Young, 8 June 1924

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To add to the poignancy of the occasion - 8th June 1924 was the day Mallory and Irvine disappeared on Everest.

Thanks to Paul who found this transcript.

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Technical note: Pictures taken with a Canon IXUS 400 Digital camera.

Panoramas created using Cannon Stitch Program.

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