Details
2 February 2023
7.00pm-9.00pm
Simon Dell MBE has trekked across the Himalayan plateau, visited the fabled Tibetan city of Lhasa and been to some of the world's highest places. Join him as he recounts his first visit to Nepal just after the death of the Royal Family when few western visitors entered the country. Many of his images are no longer possible to see because of the devastating 2015 earthquake so this is a story of Nepal pre earthquake and the story of Simon's reason for his first visit to the region so many years ago.
This event has been organised by the South West committee.
About the speaker
Simon Dell is currently the Director and Co-ordinator of Moorland Guides with over 16 books to his name. Since retiring as a full-time police constable after 30 years’ service in September 2007, he became a special constabulary volunteer in the Devon and Cornwall Police. He led the volunteer policing teams throughout the Devon and Cornwall area in respect to wildlife crime. He was a member of the Dartmoor Search and Rescue Mountain Service and in 1997 was awarded and MBE for his service.
Simon received the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in 2003 and shortly after, he received the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Award and also the Sun newspaper’s Police Bravery Award 2002. In 2009 he was awarded the Anne Frank Educator’s Award for his work with young people who suffer discrimination, this award was presented by Anne Frank’s posthumous-step-sister. In 2014 he was awarded the Lifetime in Policing Award by the Home Office after almost 40 years’ service as both a regular full-time constable and also as a volunteer special constable (having attained the rank of Special Constabulary Assistant Chief Officer). He retired fully from the police service in 2016 after 41 continuous years spanning five separate decades from the 1970s.
He is now a freelance writer having published 20 books on policing as well as Dartmoor Prison, industrial archaeology and Lundy Island. He also writes for various Dartmoor magazines and periodicals as well as the Times Educational Supplement and more recently the BBC Countryfile Magazine. He has written regular features called Dartmoor Curiosities in Dartmoor Magazine.
Simon lives in Tavistock with his wife Shirley and daughter Laura along with grandchildren Maddison and Joseph. When not babysitting grandchildren, his spare time is spent mountaineering both in the UK as well as the Alps and Himalayas, having taken part in several expeditions in Nepal and Tibet to both the north and south sides of Mount Everest and to the summit of nearby Kalar Pathar as well as climbing in the Alps and summiting Mont Blanc. When not found up a mountain he is often found playing in the local town band or with the band of the South Wales Police of which he is a member.