Dr J and Mrs EM Wilks

We have received the following in a letter from their son, Andrew Wilks:

"I am writing to inform you that sadly both of my parents who were members for many decades have now died. My father died on 27th September 2007 at the age of 85 and my mother has just died on 20th September 2008 at age of 87.

They first met in the late forties on a climbing expedition and after their marriage in 1951 they worked together at Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory as physicists until retirement. They did most of their serious climbing in the late 40s, 50s and 60s. My mother was also a member of the Midland Association of Mountaineers. In their retirement they were one of the first to raise awareness within the National Trust of the serious eroson of footpaths in the Lake District. Also they started to visit the Dolomites every year in order to do research for a book on the fighting that took place there during the First World War. Eventually they wrote two books of serious military history, "The British Army in North Italy 1917-1918" and "Rommel at Caporetto". They continued to go walking in the Lakes, the Highlands, the Swiss Alps and the Dolomites into their mid eighties."