Pat Ashworth remembered

Such sad news. Pat Ashworth passed away peacefully on the morning of the 26th December 2024, aged 83. She was moved to a hospice only two days earlier.

Pat had undergone treatment for cancer for seven years and was quite well during this time.

She was a keen Scottish country dancer spending 3 days on a dancing holiday at Arnside in August.

She enjoyed her food as her friends will know, and despite some weight loss, was well.

I relied on Pat frequently for Club history and would have been lost without her help.

We’ll know more about arrangements as soon as we hear from Harry.

Chris Fildes

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Dot and I were shocked and deeply saddened when Pat’s husband Harry phoned to tell us that Pat had passed away. We knew her condition had deteriorated but did not expect the end to come so soon.

We first met Pat on our first holiday with the club, shortly after we joined in 1982. The holiday was in Courchevel 1850, and we stayed at the Hotel Bon Sejour on a holiday organised by Ski Supertravel. We were allocated a room in the basement of the hotel which had a distinct smell of drains and very soon became known as the “Dead Rat Room”!

Members on later holidays at the same accommodation also commented on this. At this time, I was very much an early intermediate skier and my technique and abilities left much to be desired, Dot being the better skier of the two of us. However, Pat and Harry took me in hand and gradually my technique improved. I think both of us learned most by skiing directly behind Pat or Harry and trying to copy their wonderful parallel turns.

A few years later on a club holiday to Val d'Isère, Pat introduced me to the experience of skiing on unpisted snow, by taking her group on several “Routes Itineraires”, which were marked but unpisted. After a couple of runs down from the glacier, which I managed to cope with, she led us down the Piste Perdu, a long, deep ravine which was quite narrow in places and involved some rock hopping.

At one point we had to get through a low rock arch, with snowbanks either side, which required a sort of lying down, side-slipping technique, but with Pat’s guidance I made it safely and realised I had actually enjoyed it! I have skied it several times since, but I will always remember that first time.

We were living in the lake District at this time, and on several club holidays, Pat invited us to stay overnight at their house on the night before the holiday and then they drove us to and from the airport. I remember one year we parked our campervan on their drive, which involved some very careful manoeuvring!

As well as being founder members of SCoM, Pat and Harry trained as Ski Guides with the Ski Club of Great Britain, so as well as organising our club holidays they were working as ski guides throughout the season. No doubt as a result of this training, Pat took to carrying a large, heavy rucksack, which she gamely removed at the bottom of every chairlift and put back on at the top. I was very impressed with her ability to ski with such a large load.

Although Pat had not skied for several years, she will always be remembered by the older long-term members of our club who knew her and skied with her in those wonderful early days. She will be sadly missed by all of us.

Tony Keats