Terry made his exit from this world on 12th December 2021, at 21:00hrs, as it happens. He was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer at the beginning of November after a few months of grumbling about indigestion and putting it down to getting older. The diagnosis was a great surprise but he was determined to accept no treatment to extend his life, and instead accepted his lot with grace, pragmatism and stoicism, continuing to live at home until the end. He was 84 years old.

His sudden departure has been a lot to adjust to, I wasn’t prepared (but who is) and I’d fully expected my incredibly fit old lag* of a dad to go out in a blaze of glory at the top of the Matterhorn aged 99! He was still cycling good distances until a couple of months before his death and that’s how I want to live my life too – keep on keeping on until I can’t keep on any longer.

So to acknowledge and celebrate his life we had a party. A last Big Bash. A weekend of doing. A weekend of focusing on the man that brought so much to us all. Friends gathered from all over to walk and talk and share stories and laughter. For many it was a chance to get back together as a gang and reminisce. For some it was an opportunity to come to say their goodbyes, having been unable to come to the funeral during the Omicron days of the pandemic. Whatever the reason, folk turned out to celebrate Terry. He would’ve been amazed, delighted and a little shy that so many friends thought enough of him to travel some great distances to say cheerio. But that was him to a tee.

* old lag is term coined by Les, Pete and Terry to refer to themselves. None of them (as far as I know) has ever spent time inside a prison cell!

Not your average 84-year-old::  Terry, Dad, Grandad, Gulper White, but never Terrence.

Gulper White:  So-called by some of his ski-touring friends because of the way he drank his wine. No point in sipping, he would say, and take a massive gulp of wine. Because that way he was able to enjoy the flavour of the wine much more intensely, though he never drank much more than 2 glasses.

And that’s the way he lived. He didn’t do things by halves, and he didn’t hang around once he’d made his mind up, but he accepted things he couldn’t change.

Born in working class Newcastle to Edith and Billy, he was a bright boy and attended Heaton Grammar School, passing O Levels before leaving at 15. A keen cyclist from an early age, he worked 2 paper rounds to earn enough to buy his first road bike. Weekends and holidays were spent on his bike, cycling to Lands End or locally to Northumberland to go rock climbing. He was a member of the Tyne Olympic cycling club in the late 50s and early 60s and had the great pleasure of recently meeting up with one his contemporaries, Bill Wright, and got to reminisce about the old days.

After his National Service in Germany he worked at Turners in Newcastle and then London where he met a pretty little Scots girl at a party in 1962.   And thought “aye aye, she’s the one for me”. Five minutes later he was married, with a family on the way.  She also introduced him to skiing…..

Working in the photographic processing business, it wasn’t long before he and Jim Simpson realised they could build a business back home in the North East. That business was Colorworld, which became one of the top professional photographic laboratories in the UK, acknowledged by Kodak both in the UK and in the USA and the Bank of England. He brought computerised production to the lab in the 1980s, long before it was mainstream.

When our Mum died in a skiing accident in 1988 he could have declined into a long slow depression. Not him. He picked himself up and continued to build his business and pursue their joint love of the outdoors, something which was to fill his life….

After adventures in the Himalaya, the Russian Caucasus (where he got robbed at gunpoint), traversing the entire length of the Alps on skis, and ski tours too numerous to mention, he retired to the French Alps.  He spent his so-called twilight years ski-touring as soon as the snow arrived and then cycling the mountain passes all summer.

How many other 81-year-olds cycle the length of the Rhine on their own from the Swiss Alps to the Hook of Holland carrying everything on the bike? And that was the third long distance bike ride in as many years. 

He was a great raconteur, and the tales of his adventures were enjoyed by many. As his daughters, we probably rolled our eyes a little too much when he started telling his tales, but his ability to recall the name of every peak in order was impressive. I kid you not!

For a shy man, he was very sociable. He enjoyed playing what I (Amanda) can only call “age top trumps” – when going up the hill with me in Germany, he would accost any other senior citizen on the hill and compare ages with them, whether they spoke English or not.

One of the most important lessons Dad taught me (Kerry), and his dad had taught him, was “never be greedy”, always let the other guy walk away happy. He was a gentleman who listened before making up his mind, who was kind and fair, but also firm and determined. An intelligent man who was loyal and dedicated to his family and his friends.

However, should you have the impression that we’re talking about superman here – he wasn’t.  It seems he had 9 lives. From surviving skull fractures after being knocked off his bike, to living with blindness in one eye, to falling down crevasses, to crawling out of his overturned and burning car (!)

Amanda and I were constantly bracing for ‘that phone call’.

Because, just like his wine, he took large gulps of life.

And just like his wine, two glasses were enough. He lived his life to the full almost right up to the end and gracefully accepted his early finish.

Because, as he would say,  “What’s the point in sipping?”