TRIBUTES TO LAKES DEATH FALL
PROFESSOR
Published on
29/03/2008
A COMMUNITY is in mourning for a retired
professor who died while out walking on a Lakeland fell.
Leo Pyle, 67,
was found on Red Screes, above Kirkstone Pass, by members of a mountain rescue
team on Tuesday night, following a three-hour search.
The alarm was
raised after he failed to return from one of his regular trips on to the
fells.
His vehicle was traced to a car park by the Kirkstone Pass Inn –
the traditional starting point for the steep climb up Red Screes – and members
of Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team along with search dogs and the
Patterdale rescue team scoured the area.
The body was finally found at
around 11pm high on the fellside.
LAMRT leader, Nick Owen, said: “He was
reported missing by his wife after he failed to return from a walk.
“He
was an experienced walker and had crampons on so he was well equipped for the
conditions.”
Rescuers believe he may have taken a fall and struck his
head.
Professor Pyle, of Clappersgate, Ambleside, was described as a
loving family man, known to many people in the area.
He and his wife
Dympna retired to Ambleside five years ago.
“They already had a small
cottage in Langdale and a long connection with the area.
His son, Chris,
said: “He was a busy man. In the five years, I think it’s remarkable how many
people they got to know.
“Last year he was chair of the Ambleside
Churches Together group and that was one way that he knew a lot of
people.
“The second area he got involved in was with climate change and
ecology, and he was involved with a local steering group. Another large part of
his life was the outdoors, which was a major reason for coming up here. He was a
very active man and loved going into the countryside.”
Mr Pyle said his
mother and father came up to the Lake District on their honeymoon and had always
wanted to return.
He said: “He was always very sporting, with cycling and
running, and he knew the fells very well.
“He was just a very devoted
family man. Professionally, he was very successful and very active in the
community, but at the heart of it was the family.”
Father Anthony Gaskin,
of Mater Amabilis Catholic Church in Ambleside, which Professor Pyle attended,
said: “We worked very closely together on all sorts of things, such as Churches
Together, church services and education projects.
“He was a very dynamic
person and obviously a great lover of the mountains. He had been on the fells
all his life.
“It is a great shock. We are a tiny church with about 40
active members.
“Any loss is a shock and proportionately
huge.”
Professor Pyle worked at the University of Reading between 1985
and 2004 and was latterly the Professor of biotechnology.
Current head of
the food and biosciences department, Bob Rastall, said: “He was a well-regarded
and popular man, a man of great integrity and one of the most intelligent people
I have ever worked with.
“It has been a huge shock to all of us. He
deserved a much longer and happier retirement.
“We are going to miss him
and remember him fondly.”
A post-mortem took place yesterday and an
inquest will be opened on Monday.
Professor Pyle is survived by his wife
Dympna, four children, Chris, David, Hugh and Catherine and nine
grandchildren.