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August 2026
Long Lost Footage of British Mum's Trip to The Himalayas 70 years ago.
Katherine discovered long-lost cine footage of her mother Evelyn's extraordinary 1958 journey to the Himalayas. With two friends, Evelyn drove 16,000 miles to India and trekked into remote Zanskar. Now Katherine's daughter plans to retrace her grandmother's footsteps.
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After having some cine reels converted by us, our customer Katherine, told us about her incredible mother, Evelyn, who became one of the first westerners to be seen by the native people of the Zanskar region of India, in the Himalayas.
In 1958, three women set out to do what everyone said couldn't be done.
While their husbands - a group including a retired RAF officer - led a mountaineering expedition to the Himalayas, their wives had other plans.
The three of them bought a Land Rover between them and drove it 16,000 miles to India, then trekked 300 miles on foot through the Himalayas to a remote region called Zanskar, in Ladakh, India.
Along the way, they became the first women - and quite possibly the first outsiders at all - that some of the local communities they met had ever encountered.
One of those women was Eve - known to her family as Evelyn - Katherine's mother.
The expedition was even sponsored by Ovaltine, and later documented in the book No Purdah in Padam, by one of the other women on the expedition, Antonia Deacock - its title a reference to the women they encountered in the remote Padam region, who lived without purdah, the tradition of female seclusion practiced elsewhere in the region at the time.
Katherine only discovered footage of this incredible trip on some old 8mm cine reels found while clearing the house, after her mum passed away last year.
"My mother lived an extraordinary life. She never lived in the past, and was always looking to the future."
To add to this amazing story, Katherine's daughter is now planning to retrace her grandmother's footsteps - the same route, over 70 years later.
The story was covered in 2008 by Sally Williams of The Telegraph.
But we believe this is the first time anyone has seen any footage of the trip.