THE brother of the late renowned chef Andrew Fairlie has paid the ultimate tribute to his sibling by reaching the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro for two much-loved charities.
Jim Fairlie regarded the expedition as a “personal pilgrimage” after Andrew climbed to the top of the Tanzanian volcano in 2011 while fighting a 15-year brain tumour to create the world’s highest Burns supper.
Just before Andrew – Scotland’s only two Michelin Star chef – died in 2019, Jim had had a late-night chat with his brother about how he had no regrets and all the amazing experiences he had crammed into a life cut short.
When Andrew eventually passed away aged 55, Jim knew he would stop at nothing until he “touched the board” for his big brother.
Jim, SNP MSP for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire, said: “When I first raised the idea of doing this after Andy had died, I spoke to Stephen Jardine from BBC Radio Scotland who I’ve known for years, he was a good friend of Andy’s. I asked him if he fancied doing it and he said no. He said he’d support me, but he wasn’t going to do it.
“I said I have to, and he said ‘you’ve got to just touch the board haven’t you?’.
“That was in reference to a picture in 2011 where Andy is touching the board [at the top of the mountain], and that kind of became a thing, that getting to the top meant touching the board.
“As we were walking towards it [the board], I was getting quite hyped up and emotional and excited, and just elated I’d done it.”
Andrew – whose restaurant continues to thrive at Gleneagles Hotel – had been looked after in the latter stages of his life by Cornhill Hospice in Perth, which Jim decided to raise money for alongside the Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland (HIT) while tackling the mammoth ascent.
HIT runs a scholarship in Andrew’s memory and while the Scottish Government has put some funding towards it, the charity was going to need cash to continue running it in the years ahead.
Jim, 55, has now raised more than £101,000 for the two causes.
He added: “I’m absolutely over the moon. The support from people and organisations financially, and the support they’ve given personally, has been amazing.
“Whenever we got WiFi, we were doing videos and photos just updating people, and I put one video out on day five. I was pretty broken at that point, and I put it out and at the next stop I saw the messages coming back in and that was immense, getting those constant messages of support.”
After spending some time around Arusha and the Ngorongoro Crater, as well as doing a warm-up altitude climb through a Maasai village, it took Jim and his group eight days to reach Uhuru Peak – the highest point on Kilimanjaro.
Throughout his dogged pursuit, Jim did all he could for himself and others to keep spirits up, as they struggled through freezing temperatures and shortness of breath.
He said: “When we set off it was probably somewhere between 0 and -3 in the camp. By the time we got to the top, it was -18. So as you go higher, the colder it gets and your water pack freezes up.
“When we were well into the four-hour mark, and everyone’s water pack was freezing, and one of the lads I was with said ‘sing me a wee song’.
“He was really struggling and as we were going up, the guides were all singing African songs back and forwards to each other and they were giving it real oomph. It was fantastic. But when they stopped and the group split up a bit, the guy behind me said, ‘sing me a wee song’.
“So we talked about the Scotland [football] trips and how the Tartan Army would sing Doe a Deer, so I did that.
“I got the first line out and I was exhausted. I did a second one, and I was quieter. By the third, I couldn’t get to the end of it.
“I took a break and then I tried to sing a wee bit of Danny Boy for him but I barely got past the first three or four lines.
“So it was a real grind but I never doubted I was going to get to the top.
“The only things that were going to take me off the top of that mountain were wild horses or a stretcher. I needed to get there.”
When he did “touch the board”, Jim and his friends held aloft a banner with a picture of Andrew on it saying “Kilimanjaro 2022: Hope you’re watching, this one’s for you”.
The emotional trip had been three years in the making, given the coronavirus pandemic had scuppered previous attempts to get it off the ground.
With such a huge build-up, followed by a swift return to reality following the descent, Jim said he had not had much chance to reflect on what he had achieved.
He knew nothing could ever fill the hole left by Andrew’s untimely death, but the climb was a vital part of the ongoing grieving process; a mountain that needed to be climbed.
Jim added: “I had hoped it was going to be cathartic. I’m not quite sure if that’s what it’s done, but I had to do it.
“It’s been three years since Andy died and it’s still very raw, so I haven’t got to the top of that mountain and stopped grieving, it doesn’t work like that.
“But it’s definitely something I’ve ticked off. It was a personal pilgrimage, that mountain needed to be climbed.
“I don’t think the enormity of it has sunk in. I dare say it will at some point.”
