Squadron Leader Michael Cole, OBE, explorer and practical missionary, was born on April 10 1935. He died of cancer on September 25 2012, aged 77, at his home in Ross-on-Wye.
Michael Cole adopted the words of the Victorian missionary explorer David Livingstone, ‘Sympathy is no substitute for action’, as his own personal motto.
In 1974 the direction of the latter part of his life was set when he was challenged to take a water drilling rig to the famine ridden Wollo Province of Ethiopia to provide water for starving people. This showed that the exacting adventure he had always craved could be combined with purposeful, compassionate help to the poorest of the poor. Earlier as an RAF Physical Education Officer, he had climbed the mountain ‘simply because it was there’. Now there was a purpose to it that he could share with others and inculcate in young people.
